The second European Council of the Irish Presidency will take place in Dublin on 25 and 26 June. The heads of State and Government will have before them a full agenda. The issues for discussion and decision are fundamental ones which will have a far-reaching effect in shaping the community of the ninties. They are all issues on which significant progress has been made in the last six months.
European Political Union: Statements.
On a point of order, as I am very anxious to be able to respond adequately to the Taoiseach's statement, may I ask when his script will be circulated to the spokespersons——
The Deputy has made his point.
I apologise to the Deputy; the script should have been circulated by now. May I continue on the basis that it will be circulated as soon as possible?
It is just a fault in stage management.
Perhaps in the light of recent events I should take instruction from the Deputy on that matter.
Quite.
(Interruptions.)
Deputy Higgins was not here last night for the debate on the Adjournment.
I would advise the Taoiseach not to sit down.
(Interruptions.)
We missed the Deputy. He would have got a very comprehensive reply——
An Taoiseach.
Is the Deputy now fully armed? May I continue?
Of course.
Are there only four copies of the Taoiseach's script available?
I should point out that there is no injury time allowed in respect of these statements; a time limit does apply.
The Irish Presidency is engaged——
On a point or order, I regret to have to interrupt the Taoiseach — I sincerely regret it — but can I take it that there are no scripts available for the rest of the Members of this House and that this has not facilitated——
These are matters over which the Chair has no control. Let us hear the Taoiseach without interruption.
I have asked for copies to be circulated as quickly as possible.
This is nonsense.
I apologise for the delay——
We accept your apology.
——but we have been under pressure in recent days.
At home and abroad.
Obviously this is a last minute speech.
Perhaps I should explain that I had sought, with the agreement of the House, to postpone this item until tomorrow so that we would have had more time to prepare information for Deputies but, for a number of reasons, most Deputies preferred to have the debate today. Perhaps this explains these slight little——
Rumbles.
——problems.
The Irish Presidency is engaged in intensive preparation for the Council. In the past weeks, I have had a round of individual discussions with the members of the Council. Each of them has expressed approval of the approach we intend to take and it is clear that we have the basis for a fruitful discussion and concrete decisions.
High on the agenda will be the objectives of Economic and Monetary Union, European Political Union and the completion of the Internal Market Programme. A further major question is how to preserve and enhance our environment, to respond to growing threats to our planet both within Europe and on a global scale. In addition, we will be examining recommendations from the European Committee to Combat Drugs for co-ordinated action across the board against this menace. The ongoing changes in Eastern Europe and progress on German unification are also likely to be discussed, and we will, of course, have an exchange of views on international issues such as the Middle East, South Africa, and nuclear non-proliferation.
Before I go on to deal with the major issues of European integration, I would like to touch on two important items which will be discussed at the Council — the environment and the drugs menace.
From the outset, the Irish Presidency identified environment policy as one of our special priorities. We did this because we recognised an urgent need for increased Community action, not only to protect our own very fragile environment, but also to give a lead in ensuring effective international action aimed at tackling the major environmental problems which threaten our planet.
At two Environment Councils over the past months we have adopted a series of measures to strengthen Community action on the environment in such areas as access to information, waste, recycling, water quality and bio-technology. We have also reached agreement on the establishment of the European Environment Agency and would now like to see an early decision on its location.
On the global level, the Community has played a major and co-ordinated part in a series of negotiations relating to the protection of the ozone layer, the threat of climate change and the promotion of environmentally sustainable development. The Irish Presidency has sought to ensure strong, co-ordinated Community positions on the questions under discussion. This is particularly so in relation to the ozone layer, which is to be the subject of a conference in London later this month.
The revelations in the past months of the grave environmental problems in Eastern Europe and the threat they pose to the citizens of the Community, as well as to the populations of Eastern Europe itself, have sharpened perceptions. At our initiative the member states of the Community and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will meet in Dublin this weekend to consider common problems caused by environmental degradation in Eastern and Central Europe. This is widely seen as an important new step in European-wide co-operation on the environment.
In my contacts with Community leaders and during my recent tour of capitals I have found ready acceptance of the need to promote a comprehensive and coherent approach to environmental issues. My aim is for a comprehensive examination of these matters at the European Council and agreement, in a declaration to an overall approach and to actions which will have a direct impact on the everyday lives of citizens throughout the Community.
An issue which our Presidency has addressed intensively is the problem of narcotic drugs. This problem is today assuming massive proportions in both industrialised and developing countries. No country is safe. The internationally organised criminal syndicates trafficking in drugs confront the industrialised countries with a powerful, ruthless, world-wide network which can only be challenged by an entirely new type of international co-operation.
This problem has already been recognised in the United States, and the Bush Administration have made the fight against drugs, domestically and internationally, one of their priorities. We in Europe must exert ourselves to ensure that the drug cartels do not intensify their criminal trade in Europe. We must also ensure that the conditions of the Single European Market, which will be in place after 1992, are not exploited to facilitate the movement of illicit drugs and the laundering of the massive funds involved. The European countries must also see to it that drug traffickers do not benefit from disparity of effort and differences in systems between the different countries.
At Dublin, we will be calling for anti-drug strategies to be drawn up and implemented at national level and by the Community, with emphasis on prevention, education, treatment and rehabilitation of addicts and bringing the relevant legislation in the member states more closely into line. We will also be proposing, as priorities, strengthened control at the external frontiers of the Community, and control on the export of the specialised chemicals known as precursors used in the conversion of raw materials to finished drugs, as well as the adoption of measures to identify and confiscate ill-gotten gains from the sale of or traffic in illicit drugs. In addition, we see the need for assisting the countries in which narcotic drugs are produced or through which they transit.
Proposals along these lines will be considered by the European Council. I intend that the Heads of State and Government should have a good discussion with a view to adopting guidelines for a plan of action which will give a significant impetus to Community and member states' efforts to combat the drug menace.
The environment and drugs are important issues and the ability of the Twelve to deal with them will have a direct bearing on the lives and well-being of all our citizens, but I want to devote the main part of my report today to the broad question of European integration. It is clear that the time has come to intensify our work on transforming the complex of relations between the members states into a European Union. As I see it the Union will have three main pillars: full implementation of the Internal Market and the related policies defined in the Single European Act; the attainment of Economic and Monetary Union; and the construction of a new Political Union between the member states.
The achievement of a European Community market without internal frontiers by the end of 1992 will represent a major step along the path of European integration. The considerable effort put into the processing of Internal Market legislation since January has achieved results and we have made progress on a large number of measures at various levels within the Council.
The special European Council in April acknowledged that progress towards the completion of the Single Market is proceeding at a satisfactory pace. Some notable successes have been achieved under the Irish Presidency. One of the most significant was the decision on public procurement in the sectors of water, transport, energy and telecommunications. We have also seen the adoption of a common position on the framework directive for the provision of an open network in telecommunications. We are optimistic that this directive will be formally adopted when Telecommunications Ministers meet under the chairmanship of the Minister for Communications towards the end of the month.
In the field of energy, there is now agreement on the THERMIE programme for the promotion of energy technology, on the transit of electricity through transmission grids and on the transparency of gas and electricity prices for industrial users.
On the agricultural front, the Presidency has given a very high priority to work on proposals to give effect to the internal market in the veterinary area. The efforts we have invested in this area have already been rewarded by the adoption of several proposals, including some which have been on the Community's agenda for a considerable time. Substantial progress has been made on other dossiers and every effort will be made to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion in the coming weeks.
In relation to transport, significant progress has been made on a number of priority dossiers which will be taken up by the Transport Council when it meets next week. We attach particular importance to the adoption of measures for the second phase of air transport liberalisation.
In the financial area the Eco/Fin Council this week agreed on three directives on company taxation which have been under discussion for more than 20 years. The outcome, in an area which requires unanimous agreement among the member states, has been warmly welcomed by the European business community.
The European Council will want to know of progress so far and will be looking ahead to the completion of the programme by the deadline of the end of 1992. There are difficult negotiations ahead in a number of complex areas. It is crucial for the Community that all member states approach those negotiations in a positive spirit. The Single Market represent one of the essential pillars of European Union. To flag in the effort towards completion and full implementation of the Single Market would be to call into question the overall commitment to building a new Europe.
The commitment to achieve Economic and Monetary Union contained in the Single European Act is the second main pillar of European Union. During the last six months the preparatory work has proceeded apace. The Special Council in April considered that the preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference to agree the necessary Treaty amendments were well advanced and that a timetable could be set for the conference to conclude its work so that member states would be in a position to ratify any resulting Treaty changes by the end of 1992.
The foundations have been laid for the first stage of EMU to begin on 1 July. During that stage, the aim will be to achieve greater convergence of the economic performance of the member states. This is to be done by strengthening the co-ordination of economic and monetary policies. Necessary measures for increased convergence have been taken through the adoption of two Council decisions to govern mutual surveillance of economic policies and co-operation between the Central Banks of member states.
As regards the subsequent stages of EMU, substantial work has been done during our Presidency by the Council of Ministers and by the specialist committees of the Community. Finance Ministers have had a major discussion at Ashford Castle at the end of March and at the Eco/Fin Council this week. There is already a considerable measure of agreement on the design of a future Economic and Monetary Union and on its ultimate objective. From our national perspective, I am happy to say that member states agree that they view EMU in the perspective of the completion of the internal market and in the context of economic and social cohesion.
During the past months we have made progress on the overall design of a system. On the monetary side there is broad agreement on the need for a single monetary policy geared towards price stability in support of the general economic policies set at Community level. To this end, there is support for an independent and federally-structured central banking institution, which is democratically accountable. Discussions on the structure of the institution are continuing.
On the economic side, while the system would be more decentralised, it should provide for close co-operation between member states on macro-economic and budgetary policies. To the latter end, it should contain rules and procedures designed to ensure budgetary discipline, including rules proscribing the monetary or compulsory financing of budget deficits and the automatic bailing-out by the Community of a single member state in difficulty. At the level of the member states and the Community, the system should also embrace policies to promote cohesion, efficiency, competitiveness and integration across the Community.
Work is continuing on the design of the system, on the problems of transition, and on external aspects. The basis has been laid for a fruitful negotiation at the Intergovernmental Conference. I hope that at the Dublin European Council the Heads of State and Government will be able to agree that a substantial contribution has been made to the full and adequate preparation of the Conference and fix a date for its opening.
The third pillar is political union. The idea of a European Union with a substantial political content is not a new concept. In 1952, shortly after the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community, the founding fathers of the Community drew up plans for a European Defence Community and a European Political Community. We must admire the courage, boldness and vision of men such as Monnet. Schuman, Adenauer and De Gasperi when we bear in mind that only a few years previously their countries had been involved in the most vicious and destructive war that mankind has known. We know now, of course, that these particular ideas were before their time. But it was only after their failure that the leaders of the Six decided, in restrospect wisely, to concentrate the development of the Community in the economic field. From this decision was born the European Economic Community.
Few could have foreseen when the Treaty of Rome was signed, over 33 years ago, the enormous changes which would take place in the fields of international trade, communications, information technology, mass media, finance and tourism, all of which would combine to reduce the impact of national frontiers. It has been Europe's good fortune that at the very time when this economic, technological and social revolution was about go get underway — a revolution every bit as great as the industrial revolution a century before — structures were put into place which would ensure that the historic nation states would be able to meet the challenges of, and prosper in, this new economic environment.
Since then, of course, the Community has doubled in membership. The process of European integration has developed a sense of common destiny among the peoples of the Community and we have added a European dimension to our national and regional identities. This growing sense of Community has brought with it a growing realisation that while economic co-operation has undoubtedly provided the motor for European integration we cannot ignore the other aspects of our relationships if we are to achieve the goal, set out in the Treaty of Rome, of achieving "an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe".
As a consequence there has, over the years, been a continuing momentum towards consolidating the structure of the Community and extending the range of its competence. I would like to highlight some of the landmarks in this continuous process in order to demonstrate that the present debate on political union is an extension of this process and also to establish the relationship of the proposals currently on the table with what has gone before.
In 1970, the member states agreed to concert and harmonise their foreign policies in the process known as European political co-operation.
In 1974, the Heads of State and Government agreed to constitute themselves into the European Council and to meet regularly to discuss both Community and foreign policy matters. They also decided in principle on direct elections to the European Parliament and on the institution of the European Regional Development Fund.
In 1979, member states agreed on the European Monetary System which has provided the basis for the present successful initiative on EMU.
In 1983, following the Genscher-Colombo plan, the Ten member states signed the Solemn Declaration on European Union which reaffirms their commitment to European union in the economic and political fields.
Much of what was contained in the Solemn Declaration was subsequently given Treaty status by the Single European Act, which came into force on 1 July 1987. This Act reaffirmed the commitment to transform relations among the member states into a European union and the intention of implementing this union on the basis of the dual pillars of the Community and European political co-operation. The Act brought the European Council into the Treaties, consolidated and modified the powers and jurisdiction of the Community institutions, and provided a Treaty basis for the institutions and bodies responsible for European political co-operation.
Among the most important provisions relating to the Community institutions were the introduction of qualified majority voting in the Council on a wide range of new issues, the establishment of the co-operation procedure for Community legislation, thereby allowing Parliament and the Commission a greater input to the legislative process, and the granting of greater implementing powers to the Commission.
In addition to institutional reforms Community competence was extended in the area of the internal market, economic and monetary policy, social policy, research and development and the environment. The obligation on the Community and the member states to promote economic and social cohesion was given Treaty status.
Let me recall for the House that Ireland, since its accession to the Community, has shared fully in the commitment to full integration which underlies the Treaties. In the 1972 White Paper on accession, the then Government pointed out that membership would provide an opportunity for Ireland to participate fully with other democratic and like-minded countries of Europe in the movement toward European unity. Since then we have played a full role in the various developments along the way on the same basis as other member states. In doing so, we have articulated our national concerns clearly and have had them taken into account. Our approach will be no different in the forthcoming negotiations. As always we will seek to further the Community's development while at the same time ensuring that the citizens of this country share fully, and equitably, in the benefits of further integration.
From this brief outline of the development of the Community, we can identify four continuing themes: (1) extension of the scope of Community competence; (2) the development of the Community's institutional structure; (3) increased democratic accountability within the Community; and (4) development of political co-operation in the field of foreign policy.
The current debate on political union was provoked by two factors: firstly, the decision of the Madrid European Council, this time last year, to embark upon the process of economic and monetary union, and secondly, the dramatic collapse, in the final months of last year, of the post-war system in central and eastern Europe.
The prospect of economic and monetary union and the further transfer of competences from national to Community level which will be involved prompted concerns about a democratic deficit within the Community and demands from the European Parliament and some member states for accompanying action to ensure that the principle of democratic accountability — central to political life in the member states — would be guaranteed at Community level.
The developments in central and eastern Europe gave rise to different demands. The Community faced, perhaps for the first time in its existence, with one of those rare interludes in history where the political situation in Europe liquifies before once again solidifying into a longer period of relative stability, found itself confronted with a challenge of leadership. The very success of the Community — by providing a graphic example on the same Continent of a more satisfactory ordering of affairs — had been a factor in the collapse of the Communist regimes in the East. The Community, if it was to continue to provide leadership in Europe, needed to respond more efficiently and coherently to the new situation, both internally and externally.
At the end of March, I began a tour of Community capitals in preparation for the special European Council, which I had called for 28 April to deal as a matter of urgency with the events in central and eastern Europe, the prospect of German unification and the consequent incorporation of what is now the GDR into the Community. During the course of my meetings with community leaders it became apparent that there was an emerging consensus in which I shared, that the Community should respond to the new situation in Europe by accelerating its internal integration. On 18 April I received a joint letter from Chancellor Kohl and President Mitterrand stating that they believed that the time was right to achieve the goal, laid down in the Single European Act, of transforming relations between the member states into a European union.
I have already reported to this House on the outcome of the April European Council. The House will recall that the Council confirmed its commitment to political union and decided to ask Foreign Ministers to undertake an examination and analysis and to prepare proposals to be discussed at the European Council in June with a view to a decision on the holding of a second Intergovernmental Conference to work in parallel with that on EMU. In other words, that it would begin in Decmeber and complete its work so as to allow for ratification by member states before the end of 1992.
The Council identified three areas to be covered by the Foreign Ministers' examination: strengthening the democratic legitimacy of the union; enabling the community and its institutions to respond efficiently and effectively to the demands of the new situation and assuring unity and coherence in the community's international action. As I have indicated, these three themes have been central to the Community's development over the years.
Foreign Ministers undertook a detailed examination of the areas identified by the European Council during their informal meeting at Parknasilla on 19-20 May. They agreed to appoint personal representatives to carry out preparations for their next meeting on 18-19 June when they hope to conclude the preparation of their report to the European Council.
I have now virtually completed a second round of visits to Community capitals in advance of the forthcoming European Council and I can say that I am optimistic that the Council will agree to the convening of a second Intergovernmental Conference. Considerable work has gone into achieving a consensus on this matter and this is the basis on which I hope we can reach agreement.
When the question of political union was discussed by the European Council in April, I discerned three approaches. There were those who perceived political union in terms of a significant move forward towards the achievement of European Union; others understood it to involve a series of reforms designed to meet the specific needs of the moment: and, finally, there were those who were concerned to establish what political union should not include.
The aim of the Irish Presidency since the special European Council has been to arrive at a framework for dealing with political union which can accommodate these three perceptions. I am hopeful that we can achieve this, based on the understanding that political union will involve concrete steps in the process of transforming relations, as a whole, among the member states into a European Union. It would also be on the basis that political union will involve specific reforms corresponding to the needs of this situation. It would also be understood that political union will respect national identity and institutions and will reflect the principle of subsidiarity.
Negotiations on the substance and nature of the reforms and advances to be covered by political union have not yet taken place. These will not begin until the European Council has taken a decison on the convening of an Intergovernmental Conference. Some member states have put forward a suggested outline of the lines along which the debate should proceed. Many member states have not done so. The primary role of Ireland in the Presidency at this stage is to bring together these suggestions and the views and proposals advanced in the run-up to the council, in order to provide a coherent and manageable agenda for a fruitful and meaningful discussion leading to specific conclusions.
At present, I can foresee an IGC on political union taking up the three themes outlined by the European Council. As part of that approach, it may be necessary to look at questions such as the need to transfer further areas of competence to the community, the development of a concept of Community citizenship and how the various aspects of the European Union might be co-ordinated.
There will, no doubt, be other ideas as our debate proceeds. Here I will touch on some of the main issues which are likely to be discussed.
On the question of democratic legitimacy, we will have to look at ways of ensuring that the principle of democratic accountability is fully respected at Community level. This could involve an enhancement of the role of the European Parliament, increased accountability of other institutions, as well as the appropriate involvement of national parliaments in the democratic process.
The need to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of the Community and its institutions requires an examination of the internal arrangements and structures of the Community institutions. As regards changes in the Treaty, there may be a case for extending majority voting in the Council to some areas of business not presently covered by this arrangement. The role of the Commission could be looked at in order to ensure that it can continue to carry out its functions effectively — at the very least we should ensure that the commitments made in the Single European Act are adhered to.
A very important aspect of political union is that relating to the unity and coherence of the Community's international action. Co-operation in foreign policy among the Twelve has developed to the point where we are seen as an important international actor. The Twelve regularly take initiatives in the foreign policy area in order, as the Single European Act says, to "make their own contributions to the preservation of international peace and security in accordance with the undertaking in the United Nations Charter". These initiatives can take the form of joint declarations on issues on international concern. They can also take the form of common voting positions in international organisations such as the United Nations, or demarches to the governments or other parties to a dispute. They may involve specific positive measures in the form of financial and other material assistance to the oppressed, such as to the victims of apartheid in South Africa. They may also involve the implementation of restrictive measures or sanctions as in the case of South Africa. All of this activity contributes to enhancing the identity of the Twelve on the international stage and to ensuring that our collective voice is listened to with respect.
The interest of other countries and groups of countries on the Twelve's position on issues of international concern shows that European political co-operation can be an effective mechanism for conveying the views and protecting the interests of the Twelve in the world at large. As at present constituted, European political co-operation is based on a commitment of member states to use their best endeavours to arrive at a European foreign policy. There is a growing feeling that the demands of the present situation call for a deepening and strengthening of action in this area.
Although European political co-operation has been brought under the Community roof by the Single European Act, it remains distinct, in theory, from discussion on Community affairs conducted on the basis of the founding Treaties. The time has come to examine whether this institutional separation is any longer justified. There is a widely felt need to bring together the external dealings of the Community proper and the positions adopted in European political co-operation.
There is also the question of the scope of our ambitions in the foreign policy area. At present the member states have undertaken to use their best endeavours to formulate and implement a European foreign policy. An effort could be made to establish whether the Twelve should commit themselves to arriving at a common foreign poicy. It is already established in the Single European Act that foreign policy co-operation includes co-operation in certain aspects of security. In the European scheme, which is changing so rapidly before our eyes, it is appropriate to examine how this co-operation can be extended further, for instance, in the positions adopted by the Twelve in the CSCE. In my view the CSCE provides a framework for peace, security and co-operation throughout Europe and the Community and its member states will play a leading role in all proceedings and discussions to establish new structures or agreements based on the principles of the Helsinki Final Act while maintaining existing security arangements which members states have. I have already drawn to the attention of the House the explicit affirmation about the maintenance of the existing security arrangements of member states, including ourselves, contained in the conclusions of the European Council in April. It should be noted in this connection that all European states, except Albania, as well as the US and Canada, agree that, as one of the consequences of the historic developments of the last year in Europe, a meeting of CSCE Heads of State or Government should be held in 1990.
There is also the question of decision-making procedures on foreign policy issues. There will be an examination of the extent to which they may need to be made more flexible and efficient so as to enable the Community to play the leading role that it should play in the new European situation.
I am confident that we can now take the decisions necessary to ensure a substantial improvement in the Community's ability to act in a unified manner in the affairs of the European continent as well as on other international issues.
For the moment, the Presidency's concern in regard to political union must be to achieve agreement at the European Council on the convening of a second IGC on that subject and settling the agenda. My objective here today has been to keep the Dáil informed of the general lines of the issues which will be discussed in this connection. It should be borne in mind that it is at the IGC, that the substantive and detailed discussion on the precise Treaty amendments that will be required and the negotiations will take place.
I favour the convening of a second IGC, because I believe that the Community must maintain the momentum towards integration at this historic juncture. The political atmosphere is good, the mood progressive. The Community must develop its coherence, so that it can provide the leadership Europe needs now and play an enlightened role in world affairs. Ireland will, as in the past, be making a full contribution to the evolution of the Community. How could it be otherwise, since the future of the Community is our future? I am anxious to continue the practice of keeping the Oireachtas fully informed of developments and providing adequate opportunity for Members to put forward their views on these major issues.
I will also, of course, report fully to the Dáil on the outcome of the Dublin Summit in due course.
In talking about European political union I have the very comfortable feeling that I am talking about my own social and political creed and the social and political beliefs of my party. It is 23 years since I first had the privilege of becoming employed in this country and I have been in a succession of jobs since. In every one of them I have been involved, in one way or another, with the life of the European Community with its effects on this country and — I am glad to say I have had many opportunities to witness the wider effects throughout the Community of its actions and to see the effects, even outside the Community, of what the member states have been doing over that period.
I have seen the economic, social and political effects and the transformation of rural Ireland in the seventies, in which I rejoice. I have often said that the Common Agricultural Policy brought: rural Ireland into the consumer society for the first time and, although it is fashionable in some circles to decry it, I am very glad that it happened and indeed most Members of the House would share that view.
I have seen the transformation of Irish industry over that period and the enormous changes that membership of the European Community has brought about, even in our political system. I am glad that my party played a very distinguished role in that history and I do not believe that Fianna Fáil have played much of a role in it. The Left have largely been indecisive, if not very often irrelevant, in that.
What about the 1980 Berne Conference?
We are now talking about moving to a new phase of European Community development which is marked by a number of dramatic events. We will see more dramatic events over the next few years and, in that context, the claims repeated in this morning's newspapers that the Irish Presidency has successfully handled the German question are nothing short of outrageous. The Taoiseach spoke this morning of the tour of Community capitals which he began in March in preparation for the special European Council which he had called for 28 April to deal with the events in Central and Eastern Europe. We can see how hollow that claim is. The European Council met on 28 April to look at a process which had already begun and — as I said before in this House — the European Council, unwisely I believe, allowed itself to be marginalised in the whole process of German development. The European Community has played no part in shaping German reunification, which is wrong, bad for the European Community and has created a situation in Germany where the European Community is seen to be less relevant than it should have been in the great adventure in that country. The European Community and the Irish Presidency did not play a role of any kind in that and it is absurd to pretend differently.
The Taoiseach did not advance his views on the process that is unfolding or give opinions from the Government on what we should do or what options we should take. There has been no undertaking from the Government to follow any particular line, to set out any particular philosophy or to chart any course, either for their own involvement in this whole process as the Government of a member state or as a Presidency. Possibly the most telling indication the Taoiseach gave of his views on these issues was when he said:
The primary role of Ireland in the Presidency at this stage is to bring together these suggestions, and the views and proposals advanced in the run-up to the Council in order to provide a coherent and manageable agenda for a fruitful and meaningful discussion leading to specific conclusions.
That is the Taoiseach's concept of the role of the Presidency. In fact, the Taoiseach need not bother himself about all these things because the provision of a coherent and manageable agenda — as the Taoiseach should very well know at this stage — will be perfectly well handled by the Secretariat of the Council and the Commission working together. The Presidency should be providing political guidelines and challenges for the member states and Heads of State or Government who will be there, outlining options and the effects on the Community of different choices that could be made, not a simple passive reaction to what is already going on. In that the Taoiseach has clearly stated to what extent the Government have totally failed to understand the role and function of the Presidency.
Today we are having a first exchange of views on European political union, it is not a debate. I suppose one could argue that it is, on the whole, appropriate that the first discussion in the House on this very important topic should be an exchange of views rather than a debate on a motion. However, it is ridiculous that this first exchange of views should take place less than two weeks before the European Council makes a decision about the intergovernmental conferences which will map the economic, monetary and political future of the European Community. It is nonsensical that this exchange should take place without any prior information on the work that has already been carried out by the foreign Ministers to prepare for the European Council. It is ludicrous that this exchange should take place without any prior exposition by the Government of any range of options, let alone opinions, as to what course the future political development of the Community should take.
From what the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste said in this House over the last couple of weeks, it appears that the Government have decided not to make any written submissions to the European Council about their views on the future political development of the Community. It also seems that the Taoiseach and his colleagues have decided that the EC Presidency should play no role in shaping the course of that debate. Their view is, apparently, that the function of the Presidency is simply to listen to what the other member states are saying and to report to the Council what all the other Heads of State or Government already know. The result is the very passive view outlined by the Taoiseach in his speech which I will again quote:
The primary role of Ireland in the Presidency at this stage is to bring together these suggestions, and the views and proposals advanced in the run-up to the Council....
That has been very clearly demonstrated in what we heard from the Taoiseach this morning. What we heard from the Taoiseach was not a speech about European political union; it was a cold, detached, bureaucratic, academic account of what has been going on up to now and of what possible options might be on the table for examination by the other member states. The Taoiseach has avoided any commitment to any view of the European Community. He has shown no attachment to any ideal, no passion and, as far as we can ascertain, his only commitment to the European Community is to what he can get out of it in terms of publicity opportunities. That is a total misunderstanding of the role of the Presidency. Indeed it is in marked, appalling contrast with the role played by the Irish Presidency in the second half of 1984 when the then Senator James Dooge chaired the ad hoc Committee on Institutional Affairs which had the function of making suggestions for the improvement of the operation of European co-operation within the Community and also in the field of political co-operation. The work carried out by that Dooge committee was central to the development of the Single European Act. That Presidency was marked by solid achievement and an absence of ballyhoo. This current Presidency is the exact opposite — little real achievement but with a huge overdose of ballyhoo.
We might even look at some of the objectives set out at the beginning of this Presidency. We were told it was going to be a Green Presidency, for example, that it would make progress in relation to the environment. We know that the row about the location of the European Environmental Agency has been going on since the establishment of that agency was agreed last November. In January last the Taoiseach said it was the aim of the Presidency to have the location of that agency agreed in this Presidency. That will not now happen. We have heard no mention for quite a long time now of a European environment charter. Yet we remember that earlier this year there were many prominent promises made that a charter would be put in place in the course of the Irish Presidency. The Government have stopped referring to this in the last two months. Therefore, we can only conclude that there is now no prospect whatever of there being anything like an environment charter in place by the end of this month.
We are looking today at European political union. Of course, we cannot validly discuss that issue without also looking at the whole area of economic and monetary union. The debate on economic and monetary union is well advanced and arrangements for the next stage are to be considered in parallel with the consideration of arrangements for political union. We should not hide the fact that economic and monetary union, in itself, will require a great many things that will be difficult to achieve. We had a list of some of them from the Taoiseach this morning but, again, no indication of any view on the part of the Government as to how they might be brought about. It will need a unified, internal market, with free movement of persons, goods, services and capital. We know that the free movement of persons constitutes one of the big problems facing that Single Market operation today. We do not know what the Government feel about how those problems should be resolved. I am not even saying that we do not know what the Presidency feels; we do not know what the Irish Government feel about how those issues should be resolved. That unified market itself requires accompanying policies to ensure true economic and social cohesion, as called for and provided for by the Single European Act. There was nothing in the Taoiseach's statement this morning that gave any indication as to how the Irish Government believe that economic and social cohesion — central to our interests as one of the peripheral regions of the Community — is to be brought about.
The Community needs an effective competition policy to ensure that the single unified market is not dominated by monopolies or agreements. We know there are difficulties being encountered in ensuring throughout the Community something about which Ministers of the present Government have talked in the last couple of weeks, without ever achieving it, that is this famous level playing pitch. We need one of those in the European Community in terms of competition. Again, neither the Presidency nor the Irish Government would appear to have any particular view about how that will be brought about. As we know here to our cost that Single Market requires indirect tax harmonisation to avoid distortions of competition and diversions of trade. What have we got? An Irish Presidency, an Irish Government who, in the last couple of days, have expressed two totally different views about what we should do about indirect tax harmonisation and what we should do pending indirect tax harmonisation. We have had the Minister for Finance tell us, on the one hand, we can have some kind of a 36-hour rule and the Taoiseach tell us, on the other hand, that the 48-hour rule has to go. The rest of us would like to know: is there a view in the Government as to what should be done; is there any meeting of minds, speaking loosely, within the Government, as to what should be done about this?
The Minister for Industry and Commerce will tell them what to do; he will make up their minds for them.
Have they got the slightest idea what to do? Perhaps we should ask the Minister for Industry and Commerce to come in here, crack the whip and take decisions for this Government, as we have seen him do so often over the past couple of weeks, although it would appear he changes his mind very quickly thereafter. That economic and monetary union needs a very enlightened regime of environmental protection, a very enlightened regime of consumer protection. Indeed it requires very strong controls — and this is very important for us — on the scope for national intervention in key sectors such as agriculture, energy, transport and research, again in order to ensure that, in those key sectors of our economy and the European economy, we have something like a level playing pitch. It needs a major commitment to greater convergence on economic policy including, in particular, budgetary policy. It also includes the need for a strengthening of the Community budget in all the common policy areas, especially and of direct interest to us, in relation to regional policy. The monetary dimension of economic and monetary union requires that absolute priority be given to monetary stability, a total and irreversible guarantee of currency convertibility and a complete integration of banking and financial markets. It requires all of the member states to participate in the European monetary system. It will require eventually the creation of a single currency.
All of that constitutes an area that must be tackled in practical terms over the next couple of years before the idea of proceeding with political union can make any sense. Yet it receives only the merest indication of an agenda from the Taoiseach. We are told what the debate on economic and monetary union could cover. We are not told how this Government believe we should go about that, or even why they believe we should go about it. In fact, from official sources, the only cogent, coherent exposition we have been given of any view about European unity has come, not from the Government, not from the Department of Foreign Affairs, not from the Department of Finance but from the National Economic and Social Council, the only authoritative statement from any official or semiofficial source on this. We have had no view from the Government. Even in statements made in this House we have had no statement on the part of the Government of any belief in any approach to European unity.
That is the agenda for economic and monetary union, a very heavy one. It is in parallel with action on that agenda that we must define the requirements of political union. The Single European Act — much opposed by Fianna Fáil when they were in Opposition — provides a solid basis for setting out how we go about securing political union and what should be its objectives.
In my view, our action in this regard should be based on four central principles. First, progress towards political union requires a coherent and balanced approach which takes account of all the dimensions — political, economic and social — which we all expect to see in any national political programme. Second, we need to have a clear definition of the respective roles, competence and responsibilities of the Community, the member states and the regions. Third, we need to reinforce the decision making and executive capacities of the Community both in terms of its internal policy and of its foreign policies. Fourth, we need to strengthen the democratic basis of the Community system.
It is clear we need a balanced and coherent political approach. Economic success for the European Community or for a member state is not an end in itself: it is a means of bringing about a concept of society based on our view of personal freedom and social cohesion. European political union is not simply an economic concept. The concept of the European Community has gradually been enlarged since its foundation. It has gradually been extended to include elements of social policy, technological development, environmental improvement and regional balance. More recently, under the terms of the Single European Act, it has been widened further to include political co-operation.
The second guiding principle of political union has to do with the efficiency and relevance, in the widest sense, of the way decisions are made on behalf of the people. Decisions should always be made at the level where they can be most effective and most relevant. This is the principle of subsidiarity, long a central principle of Christian democracy, and one which the European Community has now openly espoused as a central concern of Community action. Many of the major political decisions facing us today, either at national level or at Community level, have ramifications that go far beyond the boundaries of nation states. No government today can ignore the interests of their neighbours. No government today can ignore the policies of their neighbours. Perhaps the most striking demonstration of international interdependence in modern times was the first oil crisis of the seventies. That showed, in one tellingly simple stroke, how deeply decisions of some countries can affect many others, and how dependent we all are on decisions made outside our shores. Political union in the European Community must recognise the pertinence and relevance of those lessons.
It must also recognise the fact, which becomes clearer and clearer every day, that there are some decisions which we all regard as national, which can more effectively be made at a more local level. The arguments going on in Ireland today — an argument which this Government have so far totally ignored — about the sensitivity of decision making to local needs give us a guide to the way we should approach the distribution of powers between a European political union on the one hand and localised decision making on the other. This again is an area where the principle of subsidiarity comes into play. Decisions should always be made at the level where they can most effectively be made. In some cases that means that the member states of the Community should accept that some decisions can more effectively be made at Community level than at national level. As a counterpart, it means that member states should accept also there are many decisions that can more effectively be made at local level than at national level or at European level. European political union must recognise this fact and must structure its institutions accordingly. That is a principle which spans the whole range of decision making, from economic policy to the administration of justice and which must include the proper democratic concern with ensuring that democratic decisions can be put into practice with due respect for the interests of democracy, individual freedom and social justice.
This is, perhaps, the most politically sensitive part of the debate about European political union. It is also the one that will matter most to the ordinary citizens of the Community in their daily lives. The Taoiseach said nothing about any view the Government might have in this regard. I have very clear, strongly held beliefs about the position of the European Parliament in this new structure. My party have very strong beliefs on that but it does not seem that the Government have any views on it or that the Fianna Fáil Party have any views on it. They seem to have been marginalised. As I have said in this House not so long ago, I believe very strongly that the explanation for this is to be found in the fact that the Fianna Fáil Party are aligned to the smallest of all the groups in the European Parliament and therefore they have no confidence in their ability to influence anything that happens in the Parliament. The Taoiseach had a few revealing things to say in the course of his speech. He said:
On the question of democratic legitimacy, we will have to look at ways of ensuring that the principle of democratic accountability is fully respected at Community level.
Bravo, we would all agree with that. However, he continues — and this is typical of the speech he made today——
This could involve an enhancement of the role of the European Parliament, increased accountability of other institutions, as well as the appropriate involvement of national parliaments in the democratic process.
We should note the words "it could". Does the Taoiseach have a view as to whether it should? In my view it should involve an enhancement of the role of the European Parliament and it should involve an increased accountability of other institutions and the appropriate involvement of national parliaments in the democratic process. That is what we need to hear in our Parliament. That is what we need to hear from the Presidency of the Community in this debate and not the tentative cold, technocratic exposition of what might be considered. The Taoiseach is suffering from what I call Brusselsitis — the Tánaiste will know what I mean when I say this — when you go to talk to the Community institutions and say that you would like to get something done, the first reaction from the Francophones is "il y a trois possibilités"— there are three possibilities, which is, of course, designed to get out of any possible commitment. That is what the Taoiseach is at here. Democratic legitimacy could involve this, that and the other.
We do not know if the Taoiseach believes that these are things that we should seek. We do not know whether the Government believe that or whether the Presidency believe that. That is just not acceptable. We have to be concerned about the effectiveness and the efficiency of decision making at Community level. In a political union, even more than in an economic union, there must be a real and lasting concern with the effectiveness and relevance of political decisions. We must ensure that the decision making structures, whether parliamentary or executive structures, are able to deliver in practical terms. So far, the European Community has been less effective at this level than individual member states. However, when we look at the interests in question and the forces that are in play, we can begin to appreciate the importance of ensuring that Community decision making is effective.
The European Community has underachieved in terms of its potential influence on world affairs. Equally, it has under-achieved in terms of its effect on the lives of its citizens. It is for those reasons we are talking about economic and monetary union and political union. World political forces are pushing us very strongly in the direction of a clearer and more effective distinction between macro-political and micro-political decisions. They are pushing us inexorably to the development of more effective, political, social and economic decision making structures. That is at the heart of the move towards political union in the European Community. It is also at the heart of the concerns of people in every parish and every local community in Europe.
The need to reinforce the democratic basis of Community decision-making follows inevitably from all these considerations. Like any local community or national parliament, the European Community needs a democratic base to validate and support the decisions it makes. In the European Parliament, we have an institution which represents the people, in the Council of Ministers, we have an institution which represents the member states and in the Commission, we have a permanent administration which should be accountable to the other two arms. That system is not perfect and it may not reflect fully the concerns of the people who inhabit our Community but it is a base on which we have to build. Building on that and rendering decision-making effective is a matter of central and immediate concern to all the people of our Community.
Properly constructed, the European Parliament can be a very effective institution for the representation of our people. Since 1979 when the first popular European election took place, that parliament has consistently shown a sensitivity to popular movements and to the expression of democratic will. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that that parliament has exceeded the expectations of those in this House, including myself, who argued in 1979 for an expansion of its role. It is the staunchest defender of regional and local interests in the European Community and no democrat need fear an expansion of the role of the European Parliament in the life of the Community.
We look to the foreign policy area. As I have said, the Single European Act provided a real and new basis for political co-operation. That must be developed because whatever different views there may be at national level on different corners of policy, the Community has an obligation to play a role on the world stage, not only in relation to trade or the world economy but also in relation to world peace and the development of the Third World. I do not find, in what the Taoiseach said today, an indication of any view that he might have on this. Speaking about political co-operation, the Taoiseach said there is a growing feeling that the demands of the present situation call for a deepening and strengthening of action in this area. That is wonderful; we all know that. We know there is a growing feeling. We have a growing feeling about it. Which growing feelings was the Taoiseach talking about?
He went on to talk about how European political co-operation remains distinct in theory from discussion on Community affairs conducted on the basis of the founding treaties. He then went on to venture his toe into the water and said that the time has come to examine whether this institutional separation is any longer justified. There is an opinion expressed in this. He then goes on to say that there is a widely felt need to bring together the external dealings of the Community proper and the positions adopted in European political co-operation. Where is that widely felt need? Who is widely feeling that need and why? Are this Government one of the governments that widely feel that need or that even perceive it? Have they an opinion about it? Is it a good or a bad thing that there should be this widely felt need, this growing feeling? If they feel it is a good thing, what are they going to do to give expression to it, to meet this widely felt need, to meet this growing feeling? There is no indication here at all that the Government are doing anything but reporting to us on things which, as I have said, most of us already know about.
There are much wider dimensions to this question of political union than I have ventured into so far. The Community is now engaged in a debate with the EFTA countries, which is designed to bring those states within the ambit of the economic action of the European Community. That is a very complex debate and one that will require a great deal of patience in dealing with those countries, some of which really want to be members of the Community without being able to express that in acceptable domestic political terms. There is no view here on where the Community is going in relation to the EFTA countries, although that must clearly be a part of any view we take of the future of political union in Europe. The Austrians have already asked to become members. One of these days the Swedes may very well decide that they want to become members of the European Community, but what do the Government feel about that? Is there a place in the scheme of things for this co-operation with EFTA or indeed for possible new members from among the EFTA countries? The Government are silent on that issue.
There is an even wider consideration than that. We are seeing today in Central and in Eastern Europe a ferment which, on all the available evidence, will bring most of those states into the circle of parliamentary democracies and enlightened market economies. I think most Members of the House will agree with me when I express a very strong concern and a good deal of sadness about the turn that events have taken in Romania. We must all hope that the situation can be retrieved and that Romania can get back again onto a consistent path of movement towards parliamentary democracy and a market economy.
All those countries are moving at different speeds but they are moving in the same direction. Over the next ten years, the political map of Europe will change out of all recognition. There is another map of Europe that will change at least as much, that is the military map of Europe. The only reason I do not intend to expand on that aspect is that I do not want this debate on political union to become overlaid by irrelevant and misdirected concerns about military issues which, in my view, are inexorably destined to become less and less relevant as time goes on.
I note that the Taoiseach again today expressed his belief in and the importance he attaches to the CSCE process, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. I agree with the Taoiseach in his statement as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. I hope we are going to see, over the next ten years, parliamentary democracies and market economies in the countries of Eastern Europe, substantial achievements in terms of nuclear disarmament as the STAR talks continue and substantial achievements in terms of conventional disarmament. I am convinced we will see over that period, Soviet concerns changing enormously, with Soviet troops being withdrawn at an accelerating pace from that part of Europe. I regret to say that I see also, over that period, increasing tensions and difficulties for the Soviet authorities with their southern republics, with what seems to be an irresistible rise in Islamic fundamentalism. All of those things are going to mean that in ten years time the Europe we look at, from whatever point of view we are considering it, is going to be so totally different from the Europe we see today, that we are going to need totally different political responses to it. If political union in Europe is going to be relevant to the world, it is going to have to accept and plan for that total change in the political map that we will witness over that period.
European political union, which depends to a very large extent on economic and monetary union, must in itself take account of the longer term considerations of the political development of states which today are still many years away from the stage at which they could realistically consider joining us.
I am appalled that the Taoiseach could say to us here, as he did in his contribution today, that he is anxious to continue the practice of keeping the Oireachtas fully informed of developments and providing adequate opportunity for Members to put forward their views on these major issues. What is happening in here is that the Taoiseach is acting like a reporter. He tells us things we can read in the newspapers. He is not sharing his views or his Government's views on any of these issues with us. It does not seem to me that the Government have any really serious intent of engaging themselves in political debate about economic union, monetary union or political union. That is a grave mistake on the Government's part. Let us make no mistake about it that what the European Community is setting out to debate in terms of political union will matter in a very real and personal way to each one of the 3.5 million people who elect us, to every one of the 330 million people who now inhabit the European Community and to every one of the 200 million people approximately who are now experiencing transformation into parliamentary democracies. We as politicians cannot content ourselves simply with reports like this; we have to make political decisions.
I think it would be very wrong not to pay tribute to the officials who have organised the different meetings that have taken place under the Irish Presidency. They have been organised with great efficiency, with initiative and they have been effective in the way they have worked. That having been said, what is taking place this morning is very interesting in relation to a debate on European political union. We are hearing a series of statements: a statement from the Taoiseach, a statement from the Leader of Fine Gael and a statement from myself on foreign policy. What we were promised in this House was a debate about the nature of European political union. That debate did not happen. We were promised, and then rejected, a statement on the Irish view on European political union. That statement is, I suppose, the Taoiseach's diary column statement that has just been delivered to the House. What this means for someone like myself who is a spokesperson on foreign affairs, is this: European political union is being discussed in this House in an atmosphere of total non-accountability and non-transparency in relation to Europe. We are being told that our master who is mingling with the best will make statements from time to time to tell us the future shape of ourselves.
I have a certain sympathy for the Taoiseach attracted by the hubris of his position when he feels he is — as I have so often described him in this House — President of all the Europeans. It must give a certain sense of excitement to receive telephone calls from Chancellor Kohl, President Mitterand and others and he feels that suddenly life has some meaning, but the reality is——
He has found his place at last in the sun.
——that we are dealing with very fundamental issues. I was in Brussels as chairman of the sub-committee on social affairs of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities. I presented the report we had in relation to the Social Charter and the Social Action Programme, and a British Member stood up and made what is called an intervention and said: "If these are your views, what are the views of the Irish Presidency?" The statement is very simple. We are seen as being one step behind Mrs. Thatcher's view on the Social Charter and the Social Action Programme. They asked: how can you reconcile the fact that Members from all sides of the House signed a report on the Social Action Programme, on the rights of part-time workers and so on, and yet the Irish Presidency would be first in line behind the British Tory Government's anti-worker attitude?
Therefore, when the President of all the Europeans comes back into the House on his rare occasions to talk to us about European political union it is very appropriate that we address some fundamental issues.
In the eighties I spent a great deal of my time trying to establish an accountability for foreign policy in this House. In the Seanad in 1986 I produced a set of proposals to establish a foreign affairs committee. I entered into discussions when I was then a Member of the Seanad, with the Tánaiste, who has now left, and who told me it was the exact kind of committee he wanted.
If only they would let me.
He then decided to tell the Leader of the Seanad in 1986: "I am sorry we cannot go ahead with this, we will have to abstain". The mandarins at that time decided they would advise the then distinguished Leader of the Seanad, Professor Dooge — a man to whom I have given public credit for his many imaginative decisions on foreign policy, one of our best Ministers for Foreign Affairs — that they would vote down my proposal in the Seanad for a foreign affairs committee.
We come in here every single week and we ask when will a foreign affairs committee be established. We are told it will never be established. I went through this extraordinary exercise of trying to discover the linguistic substructure of the Taoiseach's mind as he went on to say he was thinking about it, then he was giving it reflection and then he was giving it deep reflection. It went on like that. It was part of the arrogance of the man that he would not allow a foreign affairs committee.
The president of all the Europeans goes to all his meetings knowing that he is the Leader of the only Parliament in Europe that does not have a foreign affairs committee to come back and account for matters here. He does that every day. Why is this so? It is because guff is good enough for us, the ráiméis about "whom I have been meeting" and "I am on my second round of visiting the European capitals". Should we congratulate him on his ability to travel, that he has gone around all the important people he has been speaking with.
In this House, uniquely in Europe, we are denied a foreign affairs committee. In addition, one of the only influences I ever had on coalition formation in this country was to ask, in the negotiations for the formation of a Fine Gael-Labour Coalition, that there be written into it a commitment to overseas development aid. I argued that we should meet the UN target. The absent minor partner of the present racket never asked for this even though they attended the development aid meetings. In negotiating their agreement for Government, they did not ask, as I had done, for a commitment in relation to overseas development aid.
Again and again bits of cheap language about European political union have been visited upon this House. This will have enormous consequences. In the debate on the Single European Act two clear priorities were identified, the first was the completion of the internal market and the other was the establishment of the principle of cohesion which was referred to by Deputy Dukes. It was suggested that coterminous with the completion of the market a charter of rights for workers, particularly for part-time workers and those involved in atypical work, should be established. However, the public have been conned by the members of the major parties who told them that they would not just be voting for an integrated market but also for an integrated Europe in which there would be workers' rights.
The Federation of Irish Employers, when they attended the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities, indicated that when the playing field had been levelled they would discuss legislation on minimum pay, hours of work and so on. However, in the debate which took place on European union, when emphasis was placed on the need to integrate the market and provide rights for workers, they said, like conservative politicians always do, that the workers would have to wait. The Irish Presidency, whom we are discussing today, lined up behind Mrs. Thatcher's representatives to block rights for workers being established. When Madame Papandreou, the Commissioner responsible for the establishment of the code of workers' rights, drafted her proposals, who blocked them? The answer is the British Tories and whatever this crowd — the Irish Government — might be called.
I find this very interesting and no doubt the Minister for Finance finds it amusing given the divine deep commitment of his party to the disestablishment of democracy. They stand one day for something but fail to deliver on it the next. He sits there like a prince in waiting until his emperor is assumed into some greater status.
The Labour Party.
He says that we have to be happy with whatever he tells us. That is European political union according to them even though this is supposed to be a debate.
I asked the Government in this House to publish a position paper and indicate the options on European political union. I asked in a conciliatory and constructive way for this to be circulated to the foreign affairs spokespersons but this was not done. We were told that when the little man has had his exciting phone calls, he will come into the House and give us a bit of guff. That is European political union according to the Republicans and the Progressive Democrats who were going to facilitate the participation of every citizen in the State. They were also going to reform democracy and wanted everyone to be involved. This kin creature from a Brecht play read his meaningless statement in which he indicated who he met, that he is on his second round of meetings, how the airplane took off and landed. I must congratulate the Taoiseach but there are a few little matters I would like to raise about European political union.
Before I do, I would like to refer to the main Opposition Party. As I said, in 1986 they defeated a proposal in the Seanad on the formation of a foreign affairs committee. However, when in Opposition, being the opportunists they are, they regularly appealed that they were in favour of establishing one. This is an example of what one might call Christian Democratic ethics. Let me refer to what Deputy Dukes said about Christian Democracy and subsidiarity which took up all of three sentences of his speech. He pointed out that the doctrine of subsidiarity has long been a cornerstone of Christian Democracy. This was made popular in Ireland through Quadragesimo Anno in 1934 which recalled the great Papal encyclical of 1894 which attacked Marxism and the State. I do not need to translate the Latin.
It argued that the citizen should not be assisted until the marketplace had taken its effect and until the family had worked itself out. It was the powerful engine of anti-State thinking. When Mr. de Valera incorporated it in his thinking in drafting the 1937 Constitution, the first telegrams he got congratulating him were from Hitler and Salazar with the necessary result. It argued that the citizens should have no rights until voluntarism, charity and the marketplace had taken their effect and until the family had worked itself out.
What I find ironic is people on this side of the House raising the question of subsidiarity again given that that was the seed-bed of Fascism in Europe and they are supposed to be discussing a Europe beyond Fascism, war and so on in their converted state. What irony is contained even in the term "Christian democracy". Does democracy inevitably have to be Christian, or are Christians the only democrats? That is the dock in which the crowd have put themselves when they speak about accountability in Europe and the new era of Christian democracy with its priced money funding into them regularly to frustrate popular democracy.
Communism.
Deputy McGahon should not speak about this. He is one of the four members of the World antiCommunist League who in defiance of our equivalent in the US, sent millions of dollars to assassinate, mutilate and kill people in Central America. Those are the qualified Christian Democrats, the people who are regularly going to stand up now and tell us about the nature of European political union. As Deputy Dukes would say — the typical new latter-day arrival in Fine Gael —"I worked in this area and I worked in that area, therefore I am qualified I suppose, to speak about this." Oh yes, Dostoevsky's clerk grown up to be a nightmare.
Turning to our emperor of delusions who has given us the major speech today, I am going to raise a number of issues. Was he happy in his Presidential ecstasy when he was told by Chancellor Kohl that the Community over which he presided would have no active involvement in discussing German unification? Chancellor Kohl wrote in his statement, "We will tell you how German unification is getting on. When we have finished economic union, which has nothing to do with you, we will get on with political union and we will let you know how it is getting on.".
The Labour Party and myself are committed to a vision of the union of peoples. All my political life I have been an internationalist. I have said it is one of the great aspirations of the world that we would establish some common principles of solidarity which would accept basic values of humanness, that every child born anywhere in the world would have the right to live, the right to vaccination, the right to participate in education, the right to participate in life in whatever vocation she or he chose. In this House these views have been attacked from all sides.
What does European union mean? There was not a word in the Minister for Finance's "His Master's Voice" speech about the common European central bank. What about credit policy? What about the linkages from credit policy to employment creation? I remember a Minister for Labour who in his day used sit on those benches, one of our earliest Commissioners and who, when he was sworn in in Europe, said, "I am going to establish a charter for migrants." That was Paddy Hillery. What happened to that vision? Where is the charter for migrant workers? The Irish Presidency is completed without a reference to them, and the little President goes swanning around, knowing that he is the Taoiseach of a country which uniquely denies migrants the right to vote. Would that impress Chancellor Kohl? It would not, because, as someone put it eloquently, it is a shift from hand to ham. The fact is he is talking to his equivalent in our little emperor, feeling European. There was no reference to migrant's rights.
The President has said, "I am now on a second round of all the capitals.". They are waiting for him with bated breath, I am sure, to tell them about his vision of a united Europe. What does he tell them? "I am in this Parliament with no foreign affairs committee. There are no real debates. I come back from these kinds of affairs and I make statements and then I allow the other people to stand up and make statements, and I leave then for most of them if I am feeling very imperial." That is democracy, and he puts in bits about Eastern Europe.
Does he ever tell them we have the second highest unemployment rate in Europe? Does he tell them we are the people most likely to migrate and, even though we have the most unemployment, we are the single country in the Presidency that put not a single line in about the rights of migrant workers? "Hubris" they call it in Greek; not that our President of the Europeans is not more like to patronise the arts rather than be competent about them.
On this basic issue we are involved in an absurdity. The Government have sided with the Tories in blocking the cohesion proposals of the Single European Act. We cannot debate that. They went into the Council and blocked Madame Papandreou's proposals for part-time workers and so on. These are the interests. Deputy Des O'Malley no doubt will stand up and say that we do not have emigration any more, we now have labour mobility. Just send people flying across the face of Europe for the fun of it. These are the Republicans. Then he announces, "These people over here were never committed to neutrality anyhow.". He says we can discuss this as well.
The man I call "the old croaker", long, lean Dev, used to say in his day, "If I could only discuss the unification of Ireland, neutrality was on the cards.". Invite the Americans in and it does not matter; conditional neutrality. Now the people are asking if it is not time we abandoned it altogether.
I listened to Deputy Dukes, who has gone in for the recent habit of sliding across truth, saying the left did not understand neutrality. When this State was founded, against the advice of some of the people whose successors are in these benches, the people who attended the Berne Conference, the first conference to recognise the new State, were the Labour Party. I was Chairman of the Labour Party for 11 years. All of my predecessors spoke about neutrality. The kind of grosser intellectual mind of Fine Gael say that because they were not discussing it nobody was discussing it. The people who joined in the new State when they thought it was catching on might as well drink in the Fine Gael pub as in the Republican pub.
Regarding European political union, the emperor style is most interesting in relation to neutrality. How can anyone chair an assembly like this when one has to listen to statements about how Eastern Europe has evolved and aspired to what we have in terms of participatory democracy? There is not in the Taoiseach's statement a single reference to NATO. What are the implications of German unification in terms of its militarisation or non-militarisation? Chancellor Kohl in one of his non-warm communications to our Creon said he would tell us how it is getting on. If the Warsaw Pact has decreased in importance and gone out of existence, is it not reasonable to ask what is the role of NATO in Europe? What is the Irish position on the role of NATO in Europe? If we are to discuss German unification, what is the Irish position in terms of German membership of NATO? There is not a line in the Taoiseach's speech on this topic. Our little man was on a second round and a first round and he got on the plane and off the plane and he was excited by the conversations he had.
I remember the debate on the Single European Act and I remember the nonsense when the debate started. Down in Iveagh House the man now allocated to selling papal medals and scapulars in Rome was supposed to have drafted the economic dimension of the Single Europan Act. He did not and they rushed their little document out. Deputy Barry is frequently embarrassed when I refer to this. It is as if we must have something to throw to the people late in the day before we discuss European union.
There are many of us who are Europeans. We believed we were such before the 1970s, from the day we were born. We met Europeans. We met Scandinavians who thought they were Europeans. We met lots of people. My personal sadness is the collapse of Fianna Faíil from this tradition. I am sure Fianna Fáil supporters all over the country are appalled at the manner in which the question of European union is not being allowed for debate. I am sure there are decent people who supported Fianna Fáil over the years, who had a sense of what we used to call féin mheas, and they are shocked that their party in their new Coalition stand for nothing. What is Irish now? What is Irish foreign policy? Where specifically does Ireland stand on any aspect of foreign policy? What are we saying that is Irish, decent and human about development aid? What have we said or done in relation to the GATT negotiations? What have we said in relation to our credit policy to the international financial institutions?
We are the colonisers pet, the one all the world looked at, the people in Asia and Africa and Latin America who has been colonised. We are the coloniser's pet, the ones who learnt the language and speak on the social charter like Mrs. Thatcher, the ones who have no policy.
Where in the Taoiseach's speech is there reference to the role of the State and civil society? With all the taxpayer's money available to the Taoiseach to enable him to be literate and then to enable him to have different speeches prepared for him, I would have liked a few paragraphs about that. What about the basic nature of the State provision for housing and jobs? It is part of the beginning of the end of democracy in this country. The people who ask questions will be treated with arrogance. Every day, every week we came in here for years and said there is a distinction between diplomatic professional activity and foreign policy positions which are accountable to this House. The Fianna Fáil Party, before their conversion, used to line up with me in making those arguments. We have a right to discuss foreign policy here rather than have diplomatic unaccountability. We wore ourselves out on those arguments and then we began asking for a debate on European political union. Would there be, for example, the different options stated by the Government? In this House it was stated there was no Government position. In Brussels it was stated that a paper was being prepared. What is the position of this Government in relation to common security and defence? Is it not the old long croaking deceit of de Valera "we might and we might not be ready for it".
I want to state very specifically that unlike these people here we have been talking about neutrality since 1912. We have spoken about neutrality internally, about building a people who would love peace, who would reject the production of arms and externally would be building solidarities. This little crowd are saying it is something we are not really committed to and if it enables us to have higher range discussions, if it means that Chancellor Kohl will be nicer to our little man we can drop neutrality as well. It is one of the disgraces that Fianna Fáil have never had a public discussion on neutrality because their support for neutrality was always conditional. It was that evasive cuteness, this "peasant side of the mouth" commitment to neutrality. That is what they practised last week.
I want to make one final point before I conclude. The biggest and most used phrase in Europe is the "democratic deficit", the balance of power between the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and other institutions. There is no location of democracy in Europe in which there is a greater democratic deficit than in this very House and the person who imagines he is Charlemagne is presiding over the most undemocratic forum in Europe with the support of your party, Sir.
It should be acknowledged that this discussion is an important breakthrough for the parties in this House in that the Government have finally agreed to permit an expression of views in the House prior to an EC Heads of State meeting. So far as I am aware this is the first occasion on which such a discussion has taken place. However, the fact that we are only being permitted to make statements and are not being permitted to debate, by way of resolution, amend or vote on the Government's position indicates the distance we still have to travel to achieve full democratic accountability on the part of the Government. As Deputy Higgins said, one of the areas where there is the greatest democratic deficit is in this House.
I have no doubt that we would not even have been given time to make statements today were it not that the parties on this side of the House badgered the Government over the past couple of months to give time for such a debate. As the House knows, we only got agreement on it last week.
It would be no exaggeration to say that the period of the Irish Presidency of the European Council occurred at one of the most crucial junctures in European and world affairs. Internally, the Community has embarked in earnest on the process of finalising the internal market and moving towards monetary union while, externally, the democratic changes which have occurred in the eastern part of the continent have opened up a whole new range of potentials in the area of trade and mutual co-operation, and more importantly, have put an end to the Cold War and removed all justification for the continuation of the NATO and Warsaw military alliances.
The Government were expected to achieve progress in the areas of economic and monetary union and relations with Eastern Europe, the EFTA countries and the United States, and ensure progress on the 1992 process on such issues as implementing an action programme on the Social Charter. Of course, the Government added their own priority — the notion of a Green Presidency and promised action on a number of environmental areas. The question of political union has also been pushed to the top of the Community's agenda, by countries such as Italy which has long argued in favour of political union and much faster progress in that direction and, more specifically, in recent months by France and West Germany. It is commonly felt, and correctly so in my view, that political union can be seriously considered only when economic and monetary union has been established. However, for peripheral regions like Ireland we must also ensure that political union must be linked, to borrow a South African phrase, with profound and irreversible progress towards a social Europe.
The 12 million unemployed, the 40 million poor, the low paid, people with mental and physical handicap, the aged, women who make up 50 per cent of the European population, and other disadvantaged people must have not only legal rights but a share in the prosperity of Europe and a chance to participate in the governing of the Community.
There seems to be very little certainty among Community Governments on the question of political union, what form it should take and how fast it should proceed. Indeed, the issue came to sudden prominence and is proceeding at a faster pace than might have been expected. Given the multitude of other issues to be finalised in the 1992 process, it is surprising that the issue of political union has come so far to the forefront and so quickly. This means that other issues of vital importance to the people of the Community, such as the action programme on the Social Charter, which aims to implement the Social Charter such as it is and will hopefully improve it by providing rights for all citizens of the EC, are being marginalised by the Governments of the member states.
I would draw attention to the fact that the Social Charter was not mentioned by the Taoiseach in his speech today. The nearest he came to referring to a social Europe or a social dimension was when he said, and I quote: "As always we will seek to further the Community's development while at the same time ensuring that the citizens of this country share fully and equitably in the benefits of further integration". He said nothing about social cohesion, the social dimension or the Social Charter for the whole of the Community for which, I am sure, as President of the EC Council he is responsible at this point in time.
The issue of political union needs considerable and detailed discussion. Will it be a USA-type of union, a loose federation of sovereign states or some combination or variation of these options? What function will the European Parliament have vis-à-vis the Commission and Council of Ministers? What will its relationship be to the national parliaments and Governments of the 12 member states?
What is certain is that any political union must be such that it does not confine the Community to only 12 members. Already an application for membership from Austria has been put on hold, and Turkey, Malta and Cyprus have also signalled their interest in membership, as have a number of the states of Eastern Europe. We can hardly attempt to talk about political union of the Community without making reference to the other countries of Europe. We certainly cannot hope or expect the moves towards such political union to have the positive results that could be hoped for if we adopt an insular or fortress Europe approach.
One of the most crucial issues which must be dealt with is the military status which will attach to any political union. This issue is being addressed in one specific respect at present, the question of the military status of a united Germany. Given our history in regard to neutrality and the perspective which such a history could be expected to offer in discussions on this very important matter, I am very surprised the Taoiseach, as President of the Council, has not openly developed a position on how neutrality can be used to positive effect in this extraordinary and exciting period of change.
Germany's future military status is a key to the future status of Europe itself. There has been very little by way of specific comment from the Taoiseach on the German unification question other than what The Irish Times headlines as his “sentimental attachment” to the idea. Does the Taoiseach believe a unified Germany should be part of NATO or does he believe it should be neutral, demilitarised or non-aligned? Should any special consideration be given to the status of what is currently GDR territory? What is his view of a so-called French-type solution to the problem, that is, a united Germany in NATO but not part of the military command structure or the solution of remaining outside the military framework of NATO? It is my view that a united Germany should not be part of NATO and that one of the major proposals Ireland should be putting forward is that a united Germany should at least be a nuclear-free zone as a step towards creating a nuclear free Europe.
I do not know the Taoiseach's position on these issues. What he said this morning did not enlighten us in any way at all except for one comment which he made about the CSCE when he said: "In my view the CSCE provides a framework for peace, security and co-operation throughout Europe and the Community and its member states will play a leading role in all proceedings and discussions to establish new structures or agreements based on the principles of the Helsinki Final Act while maintaining existing security arrangements which member states have". Although it is not specifically stated there, that clearly indicates to me that what the Taoiseach is talking about is the maintenance of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, all of whom are represented in the CSCE process. I would appreciate if some Government spokesperson would clarify their Government's position on the issues I have raised in relation to this matter.
Last week in a television interview the British Foreign Secretary, Mr. Douglas Hurd, had some interesting points to make on British Government policy on the issue of German unity. He said there was no question of current GDR territory being forced into NATO in the immediate term and no question of Soviet troops being required or requested to withdraw from this territory immediately either. This position displays the degree of fine tuning within the British Government on how to pursue their interests on the German issue and it is my view that it is a grave dereliction of the Taoiseach's responsibility as the Prime Minister of a neutral country that he should leave such detailed analysis of these issues to countries which are firm within the ethos of military alliance.
To all intents and purposes the Warsaw Pact has ceased to function. Indeed, the Pact members meeting earlier this month agreed a fundamental review of its structures emphasising the need to work towards disarmament. Their communique stated: "Elements of confrontation in official documents at the Warsaw Pact and NATO no longer reflect the spirit of the times". Unfortunately, at the same time we see a desperate attempt by NATO to defend its continuing existence with NATO generals arguing the need to maintain "western security", even though the traditional enemy, the Soviet Union, clearly poses no danger to European or western interests.
The facts are of course that there are very many powerful interests commonly referred to as the military industrial complex which are anxious to maintain military spending and weapons manufacture at current insane levels. Thousands of workers and thousands of billions of pounds are tied up in the nuclear weapons industry and western governments, generals and many multinational companies simply cannot countenance a world without weapons. It is significant that on the very day that Warsaw Pact leaders were proposing a formal end to the cold war the British Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, was making a strongly worded defence of NATO, clearly signalling that on the political front western leaders had yet to accept that the cold war is over. It is this crude attitude of gung-ho and this cold war mentality that the Taoiseach seems to have absorbed in his recent attempts to belittle Irish neutrality by asking questions such as "who are we neutral against?" That is a contradiction in terms.
Certainly there is an urgent need to define what neutrality is about, specifically what Irish neutrality is about. Clearly different countries would have different definitions. Indeed some have their neutrality enshrined in their Constitution. It can be put fairly plainly that Irish neutrality obviously has to be in favour of and working for peace and against war. It should be in favour of disarmament and against militarism and military pacts and alliances. It should obviously be in favour of and in support of human rights and against repression.
It should obviously be supportive of dialogue at all levels and between all countries, and against confrontation. It should obviously be in favour of states defending themselves but against aggression by countries one against another. Above all it should be in favour of openness between countries, particularly neutral and non-aligned countries and the rest of the world and against insularity of any kind.
The Taoiseach's reference to who we are neutral against displays a mindset which shows his failure to grasp the concept of neutrality as something which should be positive and active in nature and which should serve to create a better future for Europe and indeed for the world generally. Next week's summit of EC Heads of State should be used by the Taoiseach to promote dissolution of NATO not, as he states here, the maintenance of existing security arrangements. Vaclav Havel and the new Czechoslovak Government have shown the way in proposing the dissolution of military blocks. Similarly there is a need for Ireland to co-operate at least with other European neutral and non-aligned countries to ensure that the potential to build a new and saner Europe is fulfilled.
What position have Ireland taken on the shelving of Austria's application for EC membership? I believe this is a serious matter that deserves our attention. The Taoiseach, in response to questions from me in this House, has refused to outline the Government's position on that country. Austria would be a net contributor to EC budgets. Its Parliament carried out a thorough and democratic discussion on the issue before making its application. It also submitted its application before the wave of political changes which swept eastern Europe last year and there is no question that the application was a panic reaction to developments in the eastern part of the continent. Why then is the application being shelved? Can it be related to Austria's commitment to a policy of neutrality and indeed its insistence that it wants to join with its neutrality intact?
At the present time when the military pacts have clearly lost their purpose a second netural country in the European community would be a powerful spur to helping to dismantle the NATO alliance and indeed to bringing the NATO members who are within the European Community to seeing a new way of looking at things.
I would argue that the Taoiseach, as the Taoiseach of a neutral country, which is enshrined, for good or ill, effectively or otherwise, in the single European Act, should be arguing at Heads of State level, European political co-operation level and any other level in the community for NATO members to drop their opposition to Austrian neutrality and consequently their application to join the European Community. It is surely nothing other than the reluctance of the other 11 NATO members of the EC to admit such a powerful force for neutrality at a time when the argument for continuation of NATO has lost credibility. We all belong to one European home and Ireland should pay its full role in assisting with the defrosting of our NATO neighbours.
It is equally important to grasp the opportunity of establishing European security by mutual agreement. I believe that the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe offers the best prospect for guaranteeing security on the European continent. The problem is that NATO, as stated clearly by its general secretary last February, sees itself as taking on a political role in the changed situations as a means of perpetuating its existence as a military alliance.
I should like to draw attention to the Taoiseach's statement in which he clearly indicated that he supports the maintaining of NATO. NATO is, however, as much a relic of the Cold War as the Warsaw Pact. It has no place, certainly not beyond an immediate stage, in the new Europe where even now confrontation between states has diminished almost to zero.
The CSCE has been spectacularly successful in building confidence between European states and the United States and Canada and has been a contributor to security of the European continent. However, I argue that it now needs to have a greater role, that it needs to have a role as a guarantor of our security. Up to now it has concentrated on reducing East-West conflict, and it has a difficult task given the inherently militaristic nature of NATO and the Warsaw Pact operations. The Conference now has a much clearer pitch on which to play for peace. It can work to formalise structures throughout the continent in which there would be no expectation of or toleration of force between states.
It would be extremely foolish, however, to ignore the reality that the new situation in Europe has increased the danger from regional and inter-ethnic conflicts. Warsaw Pact or NATO forces would be a very blunt instrument with which to deal with any sub-Balkan type conflagration which might arise, to give one example of potential conflict. CSCE, however, could develop a role to assist in easing tensions. In this context, there will be a need for CSCE to pay much greater attention to the issue of minority rights, as has been argued by Brigid Laffan of UCD at a conference in Dublin recently. She pointed out that the conference is already paying some attention to this issue and I understand it will sponsor a meeting of experts on the topic in 1992. However, there is a need to fine-toothcomb the text on ethnic and cultural right agreed at the Vienna follow-up conference of 1972 to deal with the type of problems which may arise from the Eastern European states in the new post-Warsaw Pact era.
Basically, we should be working towards a situation where no state would have a capacity greater than its need to defend itself. Indeed, I would argue that the members of the CSCE would sign non-aggression pacts in order to consolidate the position we have and, if possible, extend it. There has to be a primary emphasis on defence rather than on offensive positions. We should aim to reach this in what one might call, the "three steps to Heaven", starting with a non-aggression pact, moving on to the withdrawal of all troops to their own territories, and then to the final stage of removing all offensive weapons and military strategies to ensure that only a defensive military policy is maintained.
There will, I am sure, be a response from those reluctant to admit that the world has changed, that this is a Utopian proposal, but the threads of such a policy are, in fact, already in place. The meetings between the US President, George Bush, and the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev, have produced what might be called an informal non-aggression pact. Soviet troops are already being withdrawn from a number of Warsaw Pact states and both the Netherlands and Belgium have signalled their desire to withdraw their troops from West Germany. This is an ad hoc informal and narrowly based process of military deescalation, a process which, for any reason or even by accident, could easily be reversed. We should be seeking to put shape on the process. We should be seeking to have the process formalised under the CSCE and, at the same time, provide for a planned progression of the de-escalation of the military alliances and the problems that have existed in the past between the states of Europe. Indeed, it should also provide, as it has the capacity to do because of its wide representation, for a widely based negotiation forum.
The CSCE needs to be strenghened. I am surprised, while I have heard vague references from the Taoiseach that the CSCE process may be worth looking at — in his speech today he referred in a vague and offhand way to this — that he has not used the Presidency to specify how it should be looked at. We need to examine how organisations like the Council of Europe, EFTA, Comecon and the EC itself can be involved or integrated into a revamped CSCE process and how, what Jacques Delors has called the European orphans like, Turkey, Albania and Cyprus can be facilitated.
As CSCE expands it will need a more specific definition of responsibilities. There is a need, for instance, to pay attention to establishing better mechanisms dealing with confidence building and verification measures. Similarly, if the problem of potential regional conflicts is to be seriously addressed then some form of conciliation or mediation structure would need to be established. In view of the developments in some European countries that is needed as a matter of urgency. The issue of consensus as practised in CSCE will have to be assessed. When this was introduced in 1975 we were locked into a Cold War. To get anywhere then consensus was the only way to work. However, we need to re-examine the ground rules to assess whether allowing any one state to delay progress indefinitely, or to reduce changes to that based on a lowest common denominator, is still fully appropriate in the new Europe of the nineties. I should like to draw attention to the practice in the European Community where the Council have a variety of ways of dealing with issues and making decisions ranging from consensus, to weighted majorities and a veto which individual members can use on critical issues. Of course, efforts are made at all times to avoid reaching that kind of impasse.
It is not possible to give fully rounded positions on the issues I raised today but to attempt any positive discussion on European political union without addressing them would be futile. It seems that the Irish Government have abdicated their responsibilities to the countries which will take on the Presidency over the next year to 18 months. They are leaving it to them to raise the issues that arise now. Clearly, the Taoiseach is willing to upset the NATO applecart. Of course, achieving political union of any kind will require considerable prior ground work in the area of economic and monetary union and agreement on a wide range of other issues of concern, such as the environment and combating the drugs war, which were referred to by the Taoiseach. Again, I should like to emphasise that it is not possible to seriously talk about political union or, indeed, an economic union that will serve the citizens of Europe without addressing at the same time and with equal urgency the social aspects of the European Community.
There is also the question of democracy in the European Community. We cannot lecture the rest of Europe, or hope to win the continuing support of the citizens of the Community, if our own structures in the Community continue to show in that dreadful term, "the democratic deficit". As I understand it, that term means simply that we failed to provide for full democratic participation by citizens in all decision-making. There is a need to fill that gap, not just in relation to the gap between the national parliaments and the European Parliament and the gap between the European Parliament and the institutions but also the gap of the grassroots of the Community where, in Ireland and in most member states, the citizens have very little real participation in the decision-making process.
Apart from making statements in the House, Ministers of Irish Governments have no direct accountability for the decisions they make at European Council level or at meetings of Heads of State. I wonder, for instance, whether the Taoiseach has argued that the European Parliament should be allowed a fuller say in the running of the Community. The 15 minutes which were allowed at the start of the last Heads of State meeting was tokenism in the extreme. Admittedly, it was an advance but should we not be moving towards a situation where parliament should have representation and full participation at Heads of State meetings, at meetings of the European Council and meetings regarding European political co-operation?
The first official meeting of the Commission, Council and Parliament took place, uniquely, a few short weeks ago but if this initiative is not to represent even more tokenism it must be built on very quickly. The European Parliament is directly elected by the citizens of Europe and it is imperative that it is given powers commensurate with that status. Later this year in Italy the proposed "Assizes", involving national and European parliamentarians, will offer an opportunity to exchange ideas on how best to ensure that parliament works for the benefit of the Community and each member state. It should also help to clarify attitudes towards this thorny issue of subsidiarity, the "democratic deficit", monetary and economic union and, indeed, European political union.
I was struck by the Taoiseach's reference to subsidiarity because he gave the impression that is was signed, sealed and delivered. As Deputy Barry knows, there is a current major debate in all the national parliaments — certainly among the European Committees and the European Parliament itself — as to how precisely subsidiarity should be defined. It is unacceptable for the Taoiseach not to tease out issues like that before going into a Heads of State meeting which will be talking about the question of political union.
To a large extent power has been transferred from national parliament but not to the hands of the democratically elected members of the European Parliament. It has been transferred to the Commission and the European Council which, as I said, have no direct accountability to the citizens of Europe. The Workers' Party favour the principle of a federal Europe where national parliaments would have an orderly relationship with the European Parliament, each having a specific role. We can hardly move towards such a goal unless the Community, through a democratic Parliament, can exercise real decision-making on such vital issues as jobs, social policy, the environment, poverty, the budget, central banking and a range of other issues.
At present, much of the time of the Dáil is taken up with implementing regulations and directives which originate from the European Community structures. In other words, there is an emerging subsidiarity which has arisen from a combination of, on the one hand, the failure of the Irish Government to generate legislation of their own accord in line with European norms and, on the other, the combined resources of the Community offering a superior method for analysing and dealing with the demands and requirements of the citizens of Europe. There is a major gap in how this House deals with issues coming from the European Community and in how our views are conveyed to it. Deputy Barry is chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Secondary Legislation who are grossly under-resourced and who do not have adequate terms of reference to do their job effectively or efficiently. As far as I know, since the committee were established only one of their reports has been debated on the floor of the House. We are not seriously tackling the issues facing us in Europe.
The Taoiseach has adopted a negative attitude in regard to these developments. He stated that the European Parliament should only take on the issues which national parliaments cannot deal with. I heard — and so did Deputy Barry — that definition put another way in the discussions which took place in Cork, that the European Parliament should take on issues which it can handle more efficiently and effectively than national parliaments. There is a subtle — but major — difference in those two understandings.
I wish to raise two issues in relation to foreign affairs, one is the question of South Africa and the other is the Palestinian people. There has been a lot of talk about the weakening of sanctions by the European Community and I have no doubt that it will be on the agenda for the Heads of State meeting on 25-26 June, although the Taoiseach did not mention it. This week the European Parliament passed a motion calling for sanctions to be maintained and supporting the call by Nelson Mandela to maintain them. They expressed the view that it would be undesirable for the Community to abandon its anti-apartheid sanctions at this time. We should follow the advice of Nelson Mandela and the black people of South Africa who demanded sanctions in the first place, to achieve the abolition of apartheid which has not been abolished, despite many fine words.
In fairness, there has been a little more than fine words. It is a very complex issue.
I appreciate that, but the position is that, in strictly human and civil rights terms, the black people in South Africa are no better off today than they were six months or one year ago. The ANC and Nelson Mandela have taken the initiative and opened up negotiations with de Klerk. They have taken a risk in doing that and if they are undermined by sanctions being weakened who knows what will happen? It would certainly strengthen the hand of the Right in South Africa which would be to the disadvantage of everybody. As Taoiseach, Deputy Haughey expressed the view that sanctions should be maintained but he should use his weight as President of the European Council to try to ensure that sanctions are maintained until, as Nelson Mandela said, there is profound and irreversible change in the system of apartheid.
I visited Israel and the Palestinian occupied areas a week or two ago and the condition of the Palestinian people is appalling. They have no rights and they are liable to be shot on sight; 669 people have been shot dead by the Israeli security forces in the past 30 months and tens of thousands have been injured, some of them mutilated beyond recognition. This week the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for the strongest possible protest to Israel in relation to their security policy and it is important that this House makes it clear that, while we have nothing but the best intentions in relation to Israel, its security and continued existence, they cannot ignore the voice of the world which is demanding that they stop killing the Palestinian people.
When I was in Gaza, the area was under military rule and had been under a curfew for eight days. I forget the precise number but in the region of 20 people had been killed that week, not by live ammunition but by plastic bullets. The plastic bulets are not the same as those about which we speak in Northern Ireland, which are large, eight inches long, four inches in diameter. These are small bullets — to all intents and purposes the same as live ammunition — which enter the body, circulate around it doing maximum damage. Young children are being kiled virtually on a daily basis. While I was there one young child, two months old, died from the effects of tear-gas. Also a mother, who was six months pregnant, aborted as a result of having ingested tear-gas. The position is appalling.
I appeal to the Taoiseach to put this matter on the agenda for the meeting of the Heads of State next week to ensure that there is economic and political pressure exerted on Israel, if necessary on a graduated basis, in return for improvements on human rights issues. At the same time, let us put pressure on our friends in the United States — the paymasters of the Israeli State — in order to convene an international peace conference to which all of the parties in the Middle East who have a say, role or interest in the matter can contribute, so that utter chaos and bloodshed can be avoided. Otherwise that will happen. There is nothing more certain; the PLO have played all their cards, they have nothing more to play. If they do not get negotiations going the initiative will move to those with guns in their hands.
Political union presupposes that there will be an economic and monetary union in place. Without integration of the economies of the various member states, political union would have no meaning. Consequently, in assessing the merits of political union, it is desirable that we be aware of preparations within the Community for the achievement of economic and monetary union, one of the main planks of European political union.
Considerable progress is being made and this item was on the agenda for the meeting of Economic and Finance Ministers on Monday last. The focus of attention at present is on the preparations for an Intergovernmental Conference which is due to begin in December.
Before I go further, perhaps I should outline the background to the present developments. In June 1988, the European Council set up a committee under the Chairmanship of Commission President Delors with the task of studying and proposing concrete stages leading towards economic and monetary union. That committee reported in April 1989. It proposed a three-stage transition to full union as follows: Stage I to start on 1 July 1990 and to include stronger co-ordination of economic and monetary policies with full participation by all member currencies in the European Monetary System; by the time of transition to stage II, it would be necessary to have prepared and ratified the necessary changes in the Treaty to provide for full union; stage II to take the process of integration significantly futher by creating a central monetary institution to be known as the European System of Central Banks, by narrowing the fluctuation margins of currencies, some pooling of reserves, and the setting of basic economic targets, including rules for the size and financing of budget deficits and stage III to lead to permanently fixed exchange rates, the transfer of responsibility for monetary policy to the new monetary institution and binding rules and procedures in the macroeconomic and budgetary field.
At its meeting in Strasbourg in December 1989 the Council agreed that an Intergovernmental Conference on economic and monetary union should be convened before the end of 1990 and that there should be full scale preparations for this conference in advance. The conference will be concerned with the later stages of integration. As I have already said, stage I is due to commence on 1 July. I would like to speak briefly on this.
There is no timetable for the completion of stage I. This is not because of any lack of agreement in the Delors Committee but, simply, because it was not practicable to put deadlines on the terms that must be fulfilled. Very considerable progress has already been made before the stage begins. The majority of the Community currencies now participate fully in the European Monetary System. The system has come of age in terms of establishing a zone of stability and low inflation. There is considerable speculation that sterling may soon join the exchange rate mechanism. I would certainly welcome this, both from the point of view of further Community integration and because of the added stability which this would provide for our own economy. Another important example of integration is the liberalisation of capital movements between the member states of the Community and with the outside world. The bigger Community members have now fully liberalised their systems and the others will follow. Because of the special difficulties, we have been granted a derogation to the end of 1992 but, in advance of this deadline we have made very considerable headway. We introduced modifications last year, again this year and the remaining exchange controls relate principally to short term capital movements.
Stage I also requires stronger co-ordination of economic and monetary policies. It is a fundamental requirement that progress towards monetary union must take place in parallel with progress towards economic union as, otherwise, the end result will be unreal and unsustainable. There are still wide differences, in terms of development, within the Community and this is recognised in the allocation of Structural Funds. As the Community evolves into a more integrated unit, it is essential that these differences should be narrowed but this will not happen without careful monitoring and the provision of special assistance. There are also wide differences in the budget performance of the different member states. If the Community is to develop as a stable and strong unit, then excessive budget deficits in individual member states must be eliminated and some member states still fall well short of what is required. These issues are being addressed in great detail and positive steps are being taken to deal with problems.
In order to achieve the required degree of economic convergence, a system of multilateral surveillance of general economic and budget developments has been introduced. Essentially this is a kind of early warning system which will identify problems both in a general Community context and in individual member states and which will provide an opportunity for corrective action. The first surveillance exercise was conducted by Ministers under the Irish Presidency on Monday last. There was a lengthy discussion, during which Ministers spoke in a very frank and constructive manner, and the general reaction was that this was a very worthwhile exercise in terms of focusing on specific problems that need attention.
Before stage I even gets under way, therefore, the conditions attaching to it are fitting into place, though there is still much to be done. There will be no dramatic developments on 1 July and there is no serious controversy about the objectives of stage I. As I said earlier, there is no fixed duration for the full achievement of these objectives but the momentum for union has increased in recent months. This would lead me to predict that stage I will be fully in operation sooner rather than later.
By the time of transition to stage II it will be necessary to have prepared and ratified changes in the Treaty governing the Community. This will obviously be a critical step forward and it is only to be expected, therefore, that there should be a great debate before any commitments are made. This debate is already well under way. In general there is strong support for the concept of union, as envisaged in the Delors report. Most member states are taking a very positive attitude and are committed to progress as quickly as possible. There are of course differing opinions about more precise details.
Full economic and monetary union will involve the establishment of new structures with new responsibilities. For instance, it is proposed that there should be a new central monetary system which will, effectively fulfil the role of a central bank for the Community. The powers to be assigned to this institution and its relationship with the national central banks are questions of great importance. Whatever arrangements are finalised, it must be an independent institution, committed to the objective of price stability, with overall responsibility for internal monetary policy within the Community. In the area of budgetary policy, it is expected that there will be less centralisation. At the same time there will have to be some disciplines in order to ensure that policies in the member states are consistent with overall Community policy. Deputies may have seen reports of discussions about the need for binding rules and sanctions so that members in default are brought to heel. This is part of the nuts and bolts of the discussions that are now taking place.
From Ireland's point of view, we welcome the recognition in the Delors report of the special difficulties that economic and monetary union may present for the poorer and peripheral regions of the Community. We are concerned that union might have the effect of a greater concentration of economic power and influence in the central and more affluent areas of the Community. We want to be sure that a proper balance is achieved. We would also press for an increase in the Community budget as part of an overall package on union. So far there has not been any substantive debate on the regional aspects of union but the Commission is already engaged in the study of costs and benefits of union. There will be a full analysis of regional implications in due course. My colleagues in the Council of Ministers are in no doubt about our concern in relation to the regional aspects.
Much attention has already been given in discussions to the final stage of union and the structures that must be in place to underpin this. Equally important, however, is the requirement of a smooth period of transition and there are many unanswered questions to date on this. Some consider that the transition period should be brief while others warn of the dangers of moving prematurely to the final stage. The Delors report envisaged that the period of transition should constitute a training process for collective decision-making, during which responsibility for policy decisions would remain, as before, with the national authorities. There are differences of opinion on whether all member states should move at one time to the final stage of union or whether there should be different target dates for some members, depending on their state of readiness.
From what I have been saying, it will be clear to Deputies that we are still at a very early stage in the preparations for economic and monetary union and many problems have yet to be analysed fully before it is possible to express an informed opinion on them. For instance, a single currency is not an essential element of the proposals put foreward in the Delors report but some would argue that it should be a requirement of a monetary union. A critical issue is the nature and degree of political control that will be exercised over Community institutions in the new arrangements. Everybody accepts the necessity of accountability to the political authorities but there are differing opinions on the manner and extent to which authority may rest with the Council, the European Parliament or the national parliaments. There is a long debate ahead of this. As with stage I, there is no timescale for the completion of the Intergovernmental Conference and the achievement of full union but there is a strong political commitment among the majority to move ahead quickly and preparations are intensive. We support this commitment. We continue to emphasise, however, that monetary integration in isolation from economic covergence and a proper common response to regional and social inequalities would pose major problems for less-developed member states.
Economic and monetary union is a logical follow-up to the Single Market, which is already taking shape. While it will impose disciplines on us in the exercise of economic and monetary policies, Ireland should benefit substantially. As members of a monetary union, there will be still greater confidence in the stability of our currency and this in turn should have beneficial effects on interest rates. At present there is a premium on interest rates here over European rates that is not warranted by our domestic conditions. As a single and powerful economic unit the Community will be better equipped than before to compete on the international markets and outside investors will be anxious to be part of the European market. Ireland stands to benefit from these developments. We should be able to welcome the budgetary and other economic disciplines that may be applied to all members of the Community; certainly, we have no difficulty in meeting the likely conditions in this respect that are under discussion at present.
Economic and monetary union must be considered in the context of the wider developments in Europe. We have seen remarkable changes in Central and Eastern Europe in the past year. The transition from centralised to market economies will be very difficult and the emerging democracies will need considerable help. The Community has acted very quickly to provide support. It has played a central role in the special assistance programmes that are already under way. In July last at the World Economic Summit meeting, the leaders of the world's seven most powerful economies invested the community with the responsibility of co-ordinating the efforts of the group of 24 western countries in assisting the nations of Eastern Europe. This was a signal recognition of the standing of the Community and its lead role in furthering the reform process in these countries.
To this end, the European Commission has worked intensively on a programme of measures in priority areas, particularly agriculture and food processing, manpower training and development, the environment and promotion of investment, while at the same time encouraging the evolution of a favourable overall economic climate for them. In this context, I would like to mention also that the Community under the Irish Presidency, had a major part in the creation of a $1,000 million stabilisation fund for the Polish currency. It has assumed an even more prominent role in establishing a loan of equivalent magnitude for structural adjustment in Hungary. All these Community actions are on course, being carried out in consonance with those of institutions such as the IMF.
In addition to the foregoing, the Community has taken a lead role in establishing the new European Bank for Reconstruction and Development which, though representative of wider interests, will have a special European character. Indeed, it will have a particular Community dimension as the combined Community interests, comprising the member states, the Community as an institution and the European Investment Bank, will have the majority shareholding. The speed with which the agreement setting up the Bank was negotiated is evidence of the speedy, concrete and cohesive response of the Community to the dramatic developments currently under way in Central and Eastern Europe.
The plans are already in place for an economic and monetary union between the two Germanys and the impact of this on the Community generally could be quite significant. In general, the expectations are that the impact will be positive. The German authorities are very confident that unification will not lead to significant inflationary pressures and earlier predictions of inevitable increases in interest rates are now perceived to have been exaggerated. It is expected that, in consequence of unification, economic growth in Germany this year will be up to one percentage point higher than earlier expectations and the benefits of this will have a positive impact throughout the Community. Overall, the financing costs of unification should be manageable within the existing German budget arrangements.
Despite the preoccupation with unification, the German commitment to economic and monetary union in the Community has in no way been diminished. On the contrary, there have been repeated assurances from the German authorities of their commitment to union and this surely demonstrates how strong a will there is to press ahead with the implementation of the Delors proposals.
The effects of economic and monetary union cannot be measured in precise terms. This will depend to some extent on the effectiveness of the new structures that will have to be put in place. The evidence is, however, that substantial economic benefits should follow, particularly as price stability will be a priority. I am satisfied that due attention will be given to regional imbalances, and the dangers that these might pose, in the course of negotiations.
Economic and monetary integration has been on the agenda of the European Community for a very long time. It was always seen as the ultimate objective and it was recognised from the beginning that there could not be a genuine Community until this scale of integration was achieved. Earlier attempts to make progress foundered for one reason or another but the adoption of the Single European Act provided a new beginning and the members of the Community are taking full advantage of this. An economic and monetary union is finally a realistic target and we fully support the efforts that are now under way to achieve this.
The discussions on political union are still at a very early stage. The discussion will gather momentum as the interests of all member states become more interdependent and the conclusion of an economic and monetary union will bring us closer to this position. A political consensus is essential if a durable economic and monetary union is to be established. While there are still differences of opinion on certain aspects, there has been a consistent progression towards common goals and there are clear signals that the majority of members will be ready to make the necessary political commitments.
As evidence of the greater political consensus now evolving, I would like to draw Deputies' attention to the success of the Irish Presidency at last Monday's meeting of Economic and Finance Ministers in getting a package of three tax measures finally adopted. This package involves three corporation tax measures aimed at encouraging co-operation between companies in different member states. The original proposals had been put forward in 1969 and their non-adoption over the intervening 21 year period had been criticised, and rightly. The European business and industry. The passage of these measures is obviously important for the Community and for the 1992 process in particular, because it facilitates cross-country business.
The Irish Presidency took a very active role in achieving the final breakthrough which involved detailed discussions by the Presidency with some of the other member states. This successful outcome is a very significant achievement by the Irish Presidency, given the importance of the matter, the length of time the item has been on the agenda and the problems which had to be resolved.
In the course of his speech the Minister for Finance drew our attention to the success of the Irish Government during their Presidency of the European Community. In particular, the Minister said:
I would like to draw Deputies' attention to the success of the Irish Presidency at last Monday's meeting of Economic and Finance Ministers....
This rings very hollow when one considers that the Council of Ministers is one of the institutions of the Community, the Parliament is another, the Commission is a third and the Courts who adjudicate on all of these matters is the fourth institution. Yet the President of one of those institutions, the Council of Ministers, is thumbing his nose at a decision of another European institution, the Courts. As far as we can gather the Government are refusing to implement a decision that the Courts have handed down even though the Taoiseach, as boss, says we will implement it. It would have been more appropriate if the Taoiseach or the Minister for Finance had taken the opportunity during this debate to clarify the position than the rather ignorant and rude response which the Taoiseach made to Deputy Owen when she raised the matter with him this morning. I would have expected something more in keeping with the dignity of the Dáil and indeed with the responsibility of the Taoiseach and the Government to the Dáil than the reaction of the Taoiseach this morning.
It is quite clear that we have accepted the Court's decision in principle and we have gone on to make other arrangements.
Yesterday on the Order of Business the Tánaiste said that the full statement that would be made tomorrow — he was speaking about today's debate — will indicate an outline and detail of the Government's position on European Political Union. Nothing that the Minister or the Taoiseach said in their contributions today gives rise to hope that that would happen. There is nothing, in the detail or the substance, as to the view of this Government on any matter in relation to political union. While I welcome the opportunity today to have statements in the House on the subject of European union, I am extremely disappointed that once again we are not having a real debate on the complex and wide-ranging questions we must address concerning the future of Europe.
I would like to put on record Fine Gael's incredulity at the attitude adopted by the Taoiseach and the Government. Apparently the Government see our role in Europe as a passive one. Our task during our Presidency of the Council of Ministers is merely to assess and assimilate, merely to wave in the views of other people like a car park attendant, put them in an appropriate place and make no contribution ourselves. On a number of occasions since the Summit in April, both the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach have indicated that we would be submitting a document to the European Council on European political union, but it now appears we are not going to do so, in spite of what was said by the Tánaiste on the Order of Business yesterday.
In an interview which the Taoiseach gave to The Irish Times on 15 May, he confirmed that we will certainly have an input. However the input mentioned amounts to an assessment of the proposals put forward by some of the member states of the Community. The Government have, through ineptitude and lack of initiative, failed in their duty to the electorate and missed the opportunity to influence the future development of Europe.
Last week in the Dáil, the Taoiseach claimed that members of the Opposition were confused in their understanding of the role of the Presidency. He further maintained that it was not the role of the Presidency to put forward proposals but to bring together the views of member states. He is utterly and completely wrong about this. As recently as early 1988, the German Government, who then had the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, forcefully articulated their view on agricultural subsidies, budget discipline and most importantly from Ireland's point of view, on the Structural Funds. The fact that these proposals were put foreward by the Federal Republic in their role as President of the Council, added to their impact and status. The fact is that within the Community, the proposals made by the Presidency always carry enormous weight and influence.
The Government have made a serious blunder. It is crucial that a small country like ourselves should have its views and proposals down on paper and clearly articulated. It is significant that the first proposal on European union came from a small country — Belgium. In order to be taken seriously, the Government should have set up a committee of experts, chaired by a senior Irish figure, to present a report to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on a model for European political union. This is precisely what happened under the Presidency in 1984 when the Dooge Committee was founded, which was the basis for the decision arrived at by the European Council of Ministers on the Single European Act. Likewise — and the Taoiseach referred this morning to this without realising the significance of what he was saying — the German Government, in its Presidency in 1983, put forward proposals which became known as the Genscher-Colombo proposals, which were of great significance because they came from the Presidency and were put forward as a report which was then debated. The Minister for Finance referred to this matter a number of times in his statement.
This underlines the weight that can be given to a report prepared by the Presidency of the Commission. It can be used as a basis for decision-making by the Council of Ministers. The President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, knows the value of written reports as the basis for Community action. It is his report that is now the subject of debate and discussion on European Monetary Union. That was referred to at least three times by the Minister for Finance this morning.
Since joining the European Community in 1972, we have sought to play an energetic and positive role in the process of developing the European ideal. We did not join to assess and assimilate. The Community is going through a period of historic development and unprecedented change. Our task as politicians is to be at the frontiers of thought and change, not to lag behind and observe other people's suggestions.
The European Community is attempting to evolve towards a united states of Europe, yet no-one is quite sure what this means in terms of economic and political decision-making and policy formulation. The task facing the present leaders of the Community is to clarify what European union actually means. One of the central questions is what kind of institutional framework is necessary to administer a more politically united Europe. The Taoiseach referred to that en passant this morning but Deputy De Rossa developed the point much more fully and much more pertinently. The present institutions — the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament — will need to be refashioned and reformed. The question of democratic control of these institutions is a vital one and will ultimately determine the effectiveness of the Community.
The case has been made for increasing the powers of the European Parliament. The Parliament is the only directly elected European institution and it provides the vital link with the voters throughout the Community. This link is crucial to maintain the support and interest of the peoples of the Community. We are trying to build a Europe of peoples, not a Europe of institutions. The direct link with the people is an important part of the democratic process and it will be even more important as the Community expands and develops.
However, the indications from the Taoiseach and the present Coalition are that they are unsure of the role they would assign to the Parliament. The suggestion is that the role of the Parliament will be enhanced but that it will not become the real focus of power.
It is also crucial to stress that any increase in the powers of the European Parliament must not come about at the expense of the national parliaments. The conference which Deputy De Rossa referred to, held in Cork last month, and which I chaired as chairman of the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities, made this point very forcefully. The participants at the conference were members of the European Affairs Committees of the member states and members of the European Parliament. Both underlined the point that in any future movement towards European Union, the role and influence of national parliaments must not be diminished. There are plenty of ways that the role of the European Parliament could be expanded and a report from the Government on an investigation of those ways would be a very useful addition to any discussion or debate on European union, without significantly changing the role of this national Parliament and, indeed, other national parliaments throughout the European Community.
As has been said on a number of occasions, the committee of which I am chairman is a most valuable one and should meet far more regularly to discuss issues that are of vital concern to this country and that form part of the decision-making process in the European Community, through the Commission and the Council. Yet the resources of that committee are so sparse that they cannot properly do their work. We are continually hamstrung by the fact that the staff are completely over-worked and do not have the time to service the main committee and the four sub-committees. Nor have we got the funds to carry out the necessary research on various papers and directives that are coming forward, and which will come forward in the future in far greater numbers. We are talking about a deficit. This committee cannot function properly because of a lack of funds. I have written to the Minister for Finance in this regard — I do not intend this as a personal criticism — and I hope he will consider the matter constructively and positively and not just the shillings and pence needed to finance this committee. It is much more important than just a matter of money. The committee are an essential cog in this parliament, keeping tabs on what is happening in Europe, and they cannot do that work unless they are properly financed.
As I have said, at the conference in Cork last month the members of the European Affairs Committees of the member states and the members of the European Parliament underlined the point that in any future movement towards political union the role and influence of national parliaments must not be diminished. This issue will be fully discussed at the Assize to be held in Rome at the end of this year. The Assize, as the name suggests, will adjudicate on the nature of the expanded role of the European Parliament. It will be composed of equal numbers of parliamentarians throughout Europe and members of the European Parliament, all of whom will be concerned with this issue. I hope they will make a further contribution to movement towards political union by seeking to define exactly what the role of the national parliaments and the European Parliament will be in the democratic process. The Governments of the member states, in general, will want to site the real locus of power and decision-making within the Council of Ministers. This scenario would militate against a board contribution to policy making and effectively excludes any input by the Opposition parties.
The role of the Commission must also be refashioned. The Commission, has, of course, played a very valuable role in the European Community and from this country's point of view has been a valuable friend in our 17 years of membership. It is not directly elected and, therefore, it is not democratic in the sense that we would understand it.
These key relationships are just the beginning of the questions and considerations facing the Community at present. The target date of 1992 for the completion of the internal market is achieveable but the pace of decision-making will have to be speeded up for the next 18 months if that is to be the case.
One of the more complex and immediate questions the Community may have to address is the economic difficulties of the Central and Eastern European countries. The Commission has estimated that the cost of reconstructing the economies of Central Europe will be £10 billion a year for the next ten years. We need a Marshall-plan type aid package for Eastern Europe and this adds to the urgent agenda facing the Community. How do we fund such a package? Surely the Irish Government have views on that matter. Do we increase the Community's own resources by contributing more or do we benefit less by redirecting funds such as the Regional and Social Funds to the Central and Eastern countries. These issues will have an effect on our fiscal policy and on our economic planning. At the very least we need to know what the options are.
We must also decide how the Community will react to applications for membership from Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary not to mention the application from Austria which is already on the table.
There has been also a number of suggestions regarding the development of a more integrated foreign policy mechansim for the Community. This mechanism would co-ordinate security policy. The proposal raises a number of questions including the future development of NATO and the question of European security. It is imperative that we have a thorough debate and discussion on these issues and that we undertake a fundamental reassessment of our policy with regard to Europe.
From a political stance, all the member countries of the European Community need to focus on identifying politically attainable Community policies. This can only be achieved if we concentrate our discussions on the issues we must decide on and if we identify our national and European priorities. We must know where we stand as a nation before we start influencing the Europeans as to what their priorities should be and where they should go in the future. We must let the people know what the choices are and what we are asking of them.
The present Government have failed to initiate a real debate on the challenges ahead. They have talked about our Green Presidency yet we have not seen any substantial reform in this area. They have also talked about the rapid and profound changes taking place in Europe but they offer no policy direction or consideration. It is time they turned their attention to the substantive issues concerning our contribution to the future of Europe and away from the superficial matters of heliports and public relation coups. What is at stake is not merely votes or electoral success but the very survival and future of our people and our country.
I am calling Deputy Roche and he must conclude not later than 2.28 p.m.
The aims of the founding fathers of the European Community were, at the same time, simple and ambitious. The first Community formed, the Coal and Steel Community, aimed at promoting a Europe in which war between Western European nations was no longer a threat. Following on the remarkable progress made by the ECSC, the Treaty of Rome laid out a more complex scheme of things. Starting with a simple customs union, the Community was to progress to a stage where four basic freedoms — free movement of workers, free movement of goods, free movement of services and, finally, free movement of capital — was to be achieved; in other words a common market. The next stage which was less clearly defined, and finally defined in the Treaty of Rome, was that the Community should move towards economic union. Initially, the economies were to be brought closer together, consultation on economic policies was to be followed by consultations and subsequently by integration. The next move was to be monetary integration. A monetary accounting unit was to be established, the ECU, a singularly inelegant title was born. In time this would be moved beyond being a simple unit of accounting, a merging of central banks or, perhaps, a federal central bank should emerge. The ultimate aim was to move to a system of full monetary integration. With economic and monetary union achieved the next phase of the plan was to move towards political union.
As we progress through the Treaties of Rome in this regard and as we progress through the subsequent Treaties a haziness falls on it and things become less precise.
The precise form that a political union would take, a full federal Europe or a looser form of political census was never completely clear. What has been clear for many years is, that within the Community and internationally, this final step has been less well defined. At any one time views on the nature of political union have differed, not least between the member states. Over time, views on the issue have varied greatly. The process as initiated in the Treaty of Paris — elaborated in the Treaty of Rome — suffered a decline in the late seventies and up to the mid-eighties. The basis of the decline was on the one hand the success of the Communities in economic terms. The mood of the times, essentially materialistic, led to a focus on what could be extracted from a prosperous Europe and put thoughts of long term and more philosophical issues on the back boiler. The second basic reason for the lack of interest was a thawing out of relations between the East and the West, a winding down of the cold war. As relations between Eastern and Western Europe improved, the threat from the East ceased to be a catalyst. There is, of course, a certain irony here on which historians in the future will ponder. On the one hand, the bear, Soviet Russia was a catalyst which aided the process of Community building while it was perceived to be a threat. Now the democracy replacing the Marxist-Stalinist ideological sham in the East and the process of democratization in the Eastern European states has become an important element in our contemplation of the future of Western Europe.
The present discussions on European Union have had a long gestation. They have not started in the last six months or, indeed, in the last six years. The solemn declaration of the European Union followed by the draft Treaty and resolution of the Parliament in 1984 and the subsequent enactment of the Single European Act were, in a sense, starting points in a long and necessarily tedious process. The process will not be completed this year nor next year. Of necessity they will not be completed because of the complex nature and the complex set of issues involved, not least because of issues relating to sovereignty and to nationalism. Discussions on the final nature of union will take many years to conclude. Jacques Delors, speaking after the meeting of the EC Foreign Ministers in Kerry recently, was being realistic when he suggested that it was still too early to expect the necessary consensus to ensure solid progress in negotiations to emerge at this time. Notwithstanding the caution, he did take the view that there would be a federal Europe of some form, perhaps not this year, next year, but certainly within 20 years.
We should take pride in the fact that the Irish Presidency has played and is playing a continuing role in the process of defining the future of the Community and of Europe. We should take great pride in the fact that the two Dublin Summits — the one which has taken place and the one which is about to be held — are widely recognised in the Community as being among the most significant in the community's history. We should take pride in the fact that since the Heads of State and Government agreed to constitute themselves into a European Council in 1974 there have been few Councils as active or as significant as the councils which have met in this nation's capital.
It is ironic that the last Dublin Summit has been widely recognised as not only significant but highly successful. Indeed, The Economist of 5 May 1990 — not a journal noted for its praise of this country — credited that Summit with putting the European Community back on the road of constitutional reform. That is an appropriate role for the Presidency to play.
Recently I had the honour and pleasure to meet with the West German Federal President, Richard von Weingsacker. Meeting at the time with the Heads of a delegation from a recent IPU conference in Bonn he was fulsome in his praise of the Irish Pesidency. His praise went far beyond the standard diplomatic niceties of these occasions. The type of carping criticisms that have been made here, and which are sometimes made outside this House, are against this background and against the background of the importance of Europe to us all, difficult to understand.
I should like to turn to some of the contributions made here today. The Taoiseach's statement was as ever comprehensive, level and courteous. It had more substance to it than anything that followed. Deputy Dukes was as ever disappointing. He was on the theme once again that his party are the European party. Deputy Duke's carping criticism that the Irish Presidency has been less than distinguished is markedly out of line with the view taken by objective observers both in this country and outside it. Deputy Dukes repeated the line that this party, when in Opposition, opposed the Single European Act in 1986 but, of course, this is untrue and he knows it. We supported its ratification with reservations. The referendum on the Act was pressed when we were in Government.
I was also saddened and surprised that Deputy Dukes tried to compare the 1984 Presidency with this one. It is my understanding that the circumstances prevailing dictate what can and cannot be achieved. The 1984 Presidency did not achieve one fraction of what has been achieved on this occasion. Indeed, the only thing that had to be resolved at the European Council in Dublin towards the end of their Presidency was the wine lake problem. While this may have been considered an important issue in Europe it could hardly have been described as earth shaking or considered to have long term consequences for this country or for Europe.
Deputy Dukes repeated the canard about the groupings in the European Parliament. It is true that the Fine Gael MEPs are members of a large group but it is equally true that they have been swallowed up by that group as proved by the fact that they have been unable to defend Ireland's military neutrality. It is interesting to note that Deputy Dukes failed to refute or refer to the view put forward by Mr. Joe McCartin that Ireland should now dispense with neutrality and join NATO.
I was also disappointed by Deputy Barry's contribution. I have great respect and regard for the Deputy but it would have been far better if he had concentrated on his own view on Europe. I accept that he was faced with a daunting challenge in confining his contribution to 15 minutes and perhaps because of this he concentrated too much on the technical aspects.
I had expected great things from Deputy Michael Higgins but his contribution was disappointing in the extreme. His extraordinary maudlin contribution lacked vision and direction and he once again returned to his hobbyhorse of a foreign affairs committee.
Who is carping now?
However, what he had to say about such a committee could have been discussed by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities. I have great regard for Deputy Higgins and in view of this I suggest to him——
That is the kiss of death.
I listened to the Deputy without once contradicting him even though I disagreed with some of what he had to say. I have great regard for Deputy Higgins and our friendship goes back long before either of us became Members of this House. In view of this, I suggest to him that he should drop his bitter, personalised, individualistic and personal attacks which are on the increase in his contributions. They do little for him and I believe they are the domain of another political party in this House. I feel very strongly that both Deputy Spring and Deputy Higgins in their recent contributions in the House have debased themselves and the House.
This issue of European Union is an important one. It is a great pity, therefore, that those who have made statements did not deal with the issue. What we have had instead is personalised attacks and theatricality with no focusing on the issue. I am very proud to be a member of a party in government at this time and I am proud of the Irish Presidency. I was also proud of other Irish Presidencies and recognise the very positive contributions made by previous Presidencies, including the one of which Deputy Barry was a member, to European integration. As I said, we on this side of the House are very fortunate that historical circumstances are such that we can play a very significant role but let me suggest to Deputies on the opposite side of the House that it is a great pity that people have made carping criticisms about things like sirens in Dublin, about what should or should not be on the menu when a great banquet is to be held. Those issues are of no significance. They are only of significance to petty people with petty minds. It is a great pity that those who focused their minds on those issues do not use their God-given skills, capacity and experience and focus on the issue of European Union.
We have reached a crossroads in Europe. We are very fortunate that the Presidency came our way at this time. We should all celebrate the success of that Presidency rather than seek, at a time when the international media, international politicians of repute and the leaders of Europe are prepared to be fulsome in their praise of the Irish Presidency, to demean ourselves by carping criticisms and suggesting that it has been less than good. No endeavours undertaken by any politician or human being will be perfect but I submit that our Presidency comes very close to that.
I would find it very hard to commence my contribution without referring very briefly to some of the things Deputy Roche had to say. I often find myself speaking before him and then he has a "go" at me when he speaks later. I have to remind him that even though his party did not vote against the Single European Act they opposed it line by line. Indeed, they abstained on the vote as they either could not make up their minds or did not have the courage to vote against it. Therefore he should look at the report of the debate in this House on the Single European Act to see what actually happened.
It was Parnell who said, and this is inscribed on his statue in O'Connell Street, "Who am I to say nay to the onward march of a nation". I ask the Taoiseach to bear this in mind as he nears the end of his Presidency. He has no right to stop the forward march of a nation. It is extremely disappointing that he has not published a report on this issue. Such a report was published at the commencement of the debate on the Single European Act so that people could discuss in their homes, in schools or in pubs the implications of the Single European Act. It is a disgrace that he has not done so on this occasion.
It is also a pity that the Taoiseach did not take on board the advice offered by the NESC in their report "Ireland in the European Community: Performance, Prospects and Strategy" which was published in August 1989. It states at page 530:
In the Council's view, three types of response to the current phase of European integration are possible for Ireland. The first of these options is to do nothing, but respond to events as they unfold. The second possibility is to attempt to ameliorate the threats posed by completion of the market, by seeking derogations and qualifications of Community measures. The third response is to seek to devise a positive strategy.
They went on to state that such a positive strategy amounts to no less than formulation of an EC policy more explicit and fully articulated to fit the changing circumstances in the Community. It is a shame that the Government have not clarified what their positive strategy is or formulated an EC policy on Ireland having regard to the ongoing debate on political union.
It is anticipated that at the European Council meeting in two weeks' time a second International Conference on institutional and political reform will be launched. It is assumed that the following topics will be examined: the improvement of existing institutional machinery to make it more effective; increased powers for the European Parliament to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of political union and the assurance that the Community's unity and coherence exists in its contacts internationally.
I will now refer to the first of those points, the improvement of existing institutional machinery. There is no doubt that a possible extension of decision making, by way of qualified majorities in such areas as social, environmental and taxation laws, will be examined. The principle of subsidiarity must be exposed to close scrutiny and adopted as it forms part of the Christian Democrat ideal. Agreement must be reached on a dividing line of competence between the measures and proposals which can best be dealt with by means of EC legislation or national laws and practices.
Under item No. 2 the increasing powers of the European Parliament will be examined. Both the Commission and the Parliament want more power, but the Single European Act, which was adopted almost unanimously in this country, unequivocally enshrines the concept of more power for the European Parliament, and the Act over and over again refers to those increased powers.
Debate adjourned.